Top Tips for Selling Your Business Assets  In February, Jeffco Furniture made public that its 20,972-square-foot showroom property on North Hamilton in High Point was for sale. Owners held little hope of realizing the value of the company’s assets or resuming operations as they closed the business on February 5. By mid-June, however, the company had closed a deal with a Chinese investment group that acquired Jeffco’s assets, real estate and intellectual property.
The successful close of a multi-million dollar deal does not often occur that quickly, particularly in today’s commercial real estate environment. In High Point, furniture-related property values have dropped 43 percent over the past X years. However, Audi Cashion of Alpha World Properties insists it can be done, if property owners are flexible and remain open to creative solutions. “The first mistake many property owners make is failing to look realistically at the challenges they face,” says Cashion, who handled the Jeffco sale. “Before you even think about marketing your property, you need to understand exactly where you are and where you are going with your business, the challenges you face, the goals you have, your timeline, and the motivation of all stakeholders from a total business perspective.” It’s not just about selling a building, Cashion insists. “It’s about generating creative ways for how the building can be used or coming up with other creative ways to maximize company assets.” Additional tips include:
Alpha World Properties is based in High Point, N.C. The company specializes in fast-track marketing, consulting and sale leaseback transactions. A free consultation is available to AHFA member companies. www.alphawp.com |
 NESTERwood Helps Manufacturers Streamline Production Plataine, a provider of production optimization solutions, is helping manufacturers streamline production processes, expedite manufacturing cycles and reduce product cost with the latest release of its NESTERwood Optimizer. Kevin Holshouser, plant manager for Lexington Home Brands, reports that NESTERwood has increased cutting speed. “We not only complete the work faster but also get more productivity out of our existing machines, which means we can increase production without buying new equipment.” Johnny Roark, Lexington’s CAD manager and product development engineer, says the NESTERwood program eliminates manual data entry and the risk of making a mistake in the process. www.plataine.com |
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MGM Transport Now Subsidiary of CF Holding Company MGM Transport has become a subsidiary of the CF Holding Company, a furniture transportation group consisting of Caldwell Freight Lines and Foothills Trucking Co. MGM’s management, employees and assets are unchanged. The acquisition allows the companies to take advantage of operational synergies to create the strongest specialized furniture carrier group in North America. With a combined fleet of 1,760 trailers, the company will log over 49 million miles annually while covering areas from the Northeast to the West Coast and from Canada to Florida. The addition of MGM to the CF group brings warehousing and home delivery opportunities to all CF companies. www.mgmtransport.com |
NCFI Announces Expansion of Bio-Lux 
At the October High Point Market, dozens of upholstery companies were touting their new “environmentally friendly” upholstery programs featuring soy-based foam cushions. NCFI Polyurethanes introduced its Bio-Lux line of soy-based foams at the March 2007 High Point Market. Manufacturers reported that they wanted the product for all areas of upholstered furniture – not just the seat cushion. NCFI responded by offering nearly every foam it makes at a 1.8-pound density or below in a Bio-Lux version. NCFI’s source for its soy-based materials is another AHFA Supplier Division member, Cargill. www.ncfi.com
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CT Group Raises $20,000 for Catawba Science Center CT Group raised $20,000 for the Catawba Science Center in Hickory, N.C., at its annual charity golf tournament in August. The contribution will go toward a capital campaign at the Science Center. Over the past 20 years, CT Group has raised over $300,000 for various local charities. Based in Claremont, N.C., CT Group is a transportation and logistics company with three operations specializing in truck renting and leasing, interstate truckload freight transportation and freight consolidation, warehousing and distribution. www.ctgrp.com |
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Cargo Transporters Receives 2007 Fleet Safety Award For the eighth consecutive year, Cargo Transporters headquartered in Claremont, N.C., received the Platinum Safety Award from Great West Casualty Company as part of the National Fleet Safety Awards Program. The platinum award is the highest level awarded for safety performance. Cargo operates over 45 trucks in the continental Unites States. “Our trucks traveled over 60 million miles last year,” reports John Pope, CEO. “These drivers work very hard to operate in the safest and most efficient manner.” The Fleet Safety Award Program drew over 525 entries from across the country. Carriers were recognized for achieving a low preventable accident frequency per million miles of operation. www.ctgrp.com |
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MGM Transport Announces New Position MGM Transport announces Patty Toler is promoted to National Accounts Manager, and Karen Tucker is appointed to Inside Sales Manager at the company’s High Point, N.C., location. |
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Cargo Transporters to Invest $2.5 Million in Expansion Work is underway on a $2.5 million operations center expansion at Cargo Transporters’ Claremont, N.C., headquarters. The project will add 14,000 square feet of space to the existing 11,000-square-foot building. CEO John Pope says the expansion will enable the company to add approximately 500 trucks and up to 600 employees, including drivers and operations staff, over the next six to eight years. Cargo Transporters is part of the CT Group, which employes 730 people and has operations in Claremont and Conover, N.C. www.ctgrp.com |
AHFA welcomes the following new members to its Suppliers Division:
STRATEGIC DECISIONS is a consulting firm that uses the tools of consumer and business-to-business research to help furniture retailers and vendors make better decisions about their businesses. Drawing on 20-plus years of experience in the home furnishings industry, Strategic Decisions understands channels of distribution. It designs and conducts original research to provide statistically valid, cost effective information on clients’ specific issues and concerns and then works with them to develop and execute strategies to meet their goals. The company’s new proprietary online consumer testing system is  called SD Insight. The system exposes brands, new product concepts, product introductions, products already in the pipeline, point of purchase prototypes and advertising/marketing concepts to large, statistically significant numbers of consumers selected to fit the profile of the client’s target customer. Results are projectable to national markets and permit SDI clients to lower their product error rate, increase margins and motivate reps, buyers and retail salespeople by pre-testing with consumers rather than waiting for retailers to be the test market.
CONTACT: Alvin Wight, 229/226-9548 E-MAIL: awight@sdiresearch.com WEB: www.sdiresearch.com |
Serving most areas of the mid-Atlantic region, TRI STATE FOAM PRODUCTS is a manufacturer and fabricator of Expanded Polystyrene foam products. Tri State EPS is a rigid, lightweight, foamed plastic with resilient closed cells molded in a range of densities and sizes to meet its customers’ specifications.
CONTACT: George Bailey, 336/299-1212 E-MAIL: gbailey@tri-state-foam.com WEB: www.tri-state-foam.com |
For more than 25 years, MARKET VUE PARTNERS LLC has provided in-depth market and customer information for dozens of the nation’s leading retailers and financial institutions. In 1999, Retail Resources, the company’s original name, was sold to TransUnion, one of the nation’s three top credit bureaus, and in 2002 the firm was purchased by Acxiom Corp., the world’s largest provider of customer marketing databases. In late 2003, the Durham, N.C.-based company took on new ownership and is now led by industry veterans whose expertise has been built into the retail and financial database marketing sector. The company provides its clients with enhanced customer market information, virtually limitless sales and market reports, profiling, mapping, media reports and data mining. Each of these services is delivered via a secure website.
CONTACT: David Stirling, 919/433-0250, ext. 221 E-MAIL: dstirl@mvue.com WEB: www.mvue.com |
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PRO-VISION TRANSPORT INC. is a furniture carrier that specializes in time sensitive and just-in-time shipments. The company services 48 states providing cross-dock and/or freight storage, truck load and less-than-truckload shipping, warehousing, freight-handling pickups and deliveries and storage trailers.
CONTACT: Michael Draisma, 269/857-1378
E-MAIL: sales@provisiontransport.com
WEB: www.provisiontransport.com
CONTACT: Michael Draisma, 269/857-1378 E-MAIL: sales@provisiontransport.com WEB: www.provisiontransport.com |
Providing both consumer-based website solutions for industry and e-commerce solutions for retailers, ALLYOURRETAIL.COM displays products for hundreds of companies. The company creates digital catalogues, develops websites, hosts websites, has an online room planner and conducts search marketing and e-marketing for clients. CONTACT: Leah Suddreth, 800/291-9469 E-MAIL: leah@allyouretail.com WEB: www.allyourretail.com |
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BLUE RIDGE PRODUCTS INC. is a Hickory, N.C.-based provider of polyurethane foam to home furnishings manufacturers. The company also produces seat boards for dining room furniture manufacturers.
CONTACT: Charles A. Ingle, 828/322-7990 E-MAIL: blueridgeproduct@earthlink.net |
GLOBAL LINK LOGISTICS is a top ten Asia to North America ocean freight forwarder, as well as the leading furniture freight forwarder from China to the United States. The flagship of Global Link’s services is its Single Point Customer Service. This direct contact and personalized service allows Global Link to help its customers reduce landed costs and enhance both speed to market and supply chain tracking and visibility. The company recently expanded its FLEX trans-Pacific express service to cover markets in the Midwest. New markets include Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. FLEX is an acronym for “Furniture Less than container Express.” It allows retailers and importers to consolidate orders as small as 300 cubic feet from multiple factories within the Asian manufacturing region and ship direct to North American retailers. Global Link was recognized by Inc. Magazine in its 2007 ranking of the nation’s fastest growing privately held U.S. companies.
CONTACT: Gene Winters, 770/938-2656 E-MAIL: gwinters@globallinklogistics.com WEB: www.globallinklogistics.com |
SUN DELIVERY INC. is an in-home furniture carrier providing nationwide white glove service from its facilities in Thomasville, N.C., and Los Angeles, Calif. The company was purchased by present management in 2002 and, since that time, has tripled its business. Sun’s customer base includes manufacturers, nationwide retailers, e-commerce driven companies and some individual retailers with nationwide sales. The company purchased new web-based software in 2004 allowing shippers to access their data within the Sun system and also allowing consumers to track their orders on line. Bar code inventory control was also a part of this package. Suns’ Customer Care department operates seven days per week (including evenings) to assist in making sure the delivery process is smooth and that customers are kept up to date with the latest delivery information. The company’s current damage ratio is under 1 percent, primarily because all furniture is taken out of the box, professionally inspected and pad wrapped before delivery.
CONTACT: Rick Phillips, 336/472-5000, ext. 104 E-MAIL: rphillips@sundeliveryinc.com WEB: www.sundeliveryinc.com |
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Suppliers on Demand is a quarterly newsletter keeping AHFA members in touch with the products and services offered by its Supplier Division members.
This complimentary copy of Suppliers on Demand was sent to you as a benefit of your American Home Furnishings Alliance membership. Click here to unsubscribe. Click here to change your e-mail address. Send feedback here. The American Home Furnishings Alliance is not liable for the use of or reliance on any information contained in this newsletter. The next update of Suppliers on Demand will be in January 2008. Deadline for news and product releases is December 14, 2007. Email press releases and inquiries to pbowling@ahfa.us. For information about other member benefits, please contact the American Home Furnishings Alliance at 336/884-5000, ext. 106 |