Biz Buzz

Furniture Brands International, whose companies include Lane, Broyhill, Drexel-Heritage and Maitland-Smith, has seen its shares drop today after Raymond James cut its rating on FBN from “outperform” to “market perform”.

From the Associated Press, here’s what RJ analyst Budd Bugatch said in a note to investors. But what he says about the industry as a whole really isn’t all that surprising:

We had admittedly been to optimistic for far too long, consumer demand for big ticket home furnishings seems likely to remain weak for the balance of 2008 and well into 2009 due to persistent weakness in housing, higher gasoline prices, plummeting consumer confidence and generally deteriorating economic trends.”

Morgan Keegan analyst Laura A. Champine said across the sector, the second-quarter results are likely to be below expectations, the AP reported.

We believe investors should reduce exposure to the home products sector, as the valuations of many of our companies remain unattractive reltive to potential long-term growth rates,” she wrote.

She rates Furniture Brands “Market Perform”

No, it’s not looking very good right now for the furniture industry, but that’s not news, really. We’ve seen it going on for the past couple of years.

Officials have confirmed that the Action/Lane Furniture plant in Pontotoc is closing, affecting some 230 workers at the facility.

Pontotoc Mayor Bill Rutledge said it was “a bad day” for Pontotoc, but indicated there was a little good news coming from the announcement that might soften the blow.

The Mississippi Department of Employment Security also said it was ready to send a Rapid Response Team to help employees. An official said it had contacted the company.

For more details, check Saturday’s edition of the Daily Journal.

We’ve been hearing all sorts of reports of layoffs/impending layoffs and slowdowns at area furniture manufacturers.

While a summer slowdown is par for the course, apparently the timetable has been moved up, as furniture retailers continue to find a rough going in this slowing economy.

We’ve gotten unconfirmed reports of companies across the region telling workers that times are tough, and will get tougher.

Anyone heard anything, especially if you’re a furniture worker?

If you don’t care to blog about it, e-mail me directly at dennis.seid@djournal.com or call me at 678-1578.

The World Market Center in Las Vegas has changed the dates for its winter 2009 furniture market. It’s now Feb. 9 to 13, 2009.

From the market press release:

Market officials say these market dates best align with exhibitor business cycles, relieve industry show conflicts and fall during a period in which Las Vegas hotel rates are more favorable for U.S. and international attendees.

Only one problem - the Tupelo Furniture Market has its spring market set for Feb. 19 to 22, 2009. TFM reps tell Biz Buzz that they will more than likely have to change their dates. And this comes after all the shuffling with the Beta Club. Read more in tomorrow’s Daily Journal.

Furniture Brands International, whose lineup includes Lane and Thomasville, said late Thursday that its first-quarter profit might actually be better than last year’s 1Q earnings. Sales, however, look to be down some 14 percent.

From the Associated Press:

Furniture Brands International Inc. said its first-quarter profit will likely come in ahead of last year’s results.

Late Thursday the furniture maker said earnings from continuing operations will likely be 7 or 8 cents per share compared with a profit of 3 cents per share in the year-ago period.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expect net income of 5 cents per share.

Quarterly results exclude the sale of Hickory Business Furniture.

Revenue for the period ended March 31 slipped 14 percent to $477 million from $557 million, which missed Wall Street’s estimate of $512.3 million.

Furniture Brands maintained its full-year profit forecast of 40 to 60 cents per share on sales of $1.9 billion to $2 billion.

Analysts predict 2008 earnings of 34 cents per share on revenue of $1.95 billion.

The Biz Buzz team has been on the move today. Dennis is in Booneville at ACCO’s grand opening, and I (Carlie) spent the better part of today in Ripley at the ribbon cutting for Agracel, an Illinois-based industrial developer. Agracel bought three former Benchcraft/Berkline buildings and plans to market them to Tier 2 and Tier 3 Toyota suppliers.

Tippah County Development Foundation CEO Duane Bullard and Agracel CEO Jack Schultz (his blog) said they’ve already sold one of the buildings and will tell us who it is in about two weeks.

The full story will be in tomorrow’s paper. But here are a few Web exclusive tidbits … Bullard made the initial introductions from the podium and recognized three-fourths of the 50-member audience by name. Two of the Agracel folks didn’t make it out because their plane was grounded due to weather. The ones who came in last night stayed at the Inn on the Square and had nice things about it. The whole Agracel/TCDF/MDA/NMIDA posse ate lunch at Capansky’s after the ribbon cutting.

And Schultz, who is the author of Boomtown USA, took a copious amount of notes during his trip to NeMiss that he plans to turn into a series of blog posts and critiques next week. We’ll let you know when they go live.

A furniture supply company that already has two sites in Northeast Mississippi is actively looking to establish a facility in Tupelo, officials announced today.

The new company, a joint venture between a North Carolina company and a Chinese company, will do some light manufacturing work in addition to having R&D, testing labs, offices and a showroom.

For more details, read Wednesday’s Daily Journal.

From Furniture Today:

HIGH POINT — Furniture Brands International has announced it plans to move the Henredon and Drexel Heritage headquarters, now in a single building, into two separate locations before the October High Point Market.

FBI said in a press release it plans to sell “the former Henredon/Drexel Heritage office building.” Although it didn’t give an address, that appears to indicate the corporate offices and showroom building on Eastchester Drive in High Point. More.

Monday, Furniture Brands said it signed a deal to sell its Hickory Business Furniture unit to HNI Corp. for $75 million. The company said HBF didn’t fit in its strategic focus on the residential consumer market.

Good news regarding the American Furniture Manufacturing plant in Ecru, which had that devastating fire three week ago.

President Lyle Harris said the company has hired most of its 1,100 workers back, and production is churning along. American has two shifts at the Landmark building and at its flex plant down the road, cranking out stationary furniture. You’ll recall that the company’s motion and recliner line was undamaged in the fire.

American is still looking to close a deal on another facility. And it needs it, because it had a good market at last week’s spring Tupelo Furniture Market.

We’ll keep you updated.

All the Daily Journal’s coverage from the spring Tupelo Furniture market: