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Hooker Furniture (HOFT) |
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WIKI ANALYSIS
Hooker Furniture
Hooker Furniture (HOFT) was founded in 1924 by Clyde Hooker Jr, and today is one of the leading manufacturers and importers of luxury furniture. Hooker Furniture is an importer of residential wood and metal furniture and a manufacturer and importer of upholstered furniture based in Martinsville, Va. These major wood furniture categories include home entertainment, home office, dining and bedroom furniture sold under the Hooker Furniture brand, and is also offered at lower prices and quality under the Envision Lifestyle Collections by Hooker Furniture brand. Along with their Envision Lifestyle Collections, Hooker furniture also owns and operates Bradington and Young, which is a leather seating line, Sam Moore, which offers custom seating and lastly Opus Designs, which specializes in youth bedroom furniture. All of these brands operate under the Hooker Furniture name. Hooker Furniture operates out of Martinsville, Va, and has over 800 employees at their Virginia and North Carolina locations. HOFT imports an extensive line of furnishings from factories throughout the Pacific Rim, Mexico and Central America.
Business Overview
Hooker Furniture is one of the leading furniture companies in the world for over 86 years. They are a complete home furnishing manufacturer and retailer offering furniture in dining, bedroom, home entertainment, and home office segmebts.They also produce leather seatsn and customs chairs through their Brandington-Young and Sam Moore divisions. Hooker furniture prides themselves on offerring a diversity of styles ranging from classical elegance to casual home furnishings. They strive to appeal to customers of all diversities and have an international division to assist people from different parts of the world in accessing their products.
Strategy
Hooker furnitures mission is to "enrich the lives of the people we touch" by using a business strategy which focuses on offering world-class style, quality and product value. [1] They strive to make the highest quality products by using the highest quality materials. Their product design, manufacturing, marketing, sales and customer service are their main areas of concern, and they know that by offering the best products along with having the best customer service will give them a competitive advantage over other companies within their industry. Hooker Furniture is one of the few companies remaining that has kept the company within the family through its full existence. They have been in business for over 85 years have passed down the ownership through the family. They nurture this relationship-focused and family oriented business that has distinguished this company from their competitors for nearly a century.
Business Segments
Hooker Furniture does all of its business in three reportable segments. These segments include casegoods, leather upholstery and fabric upholstery. In the furniture industry, there is a high similarity between these product lines, and for this reason Hooker Furniture reports all of their results of operations into one operating segment. Their production processes, customers and distribution methods are all so similar across these three segments it makes the most sense to group them into one for reporting purposes. [2]
Human Resources
Hooker furniture has 688 full time employees as of January 30, 2011. None of these workers are connected to any labor unions.
Key Personnel
Paul B. Toms Jr. - Joined the company in 1983. Has served as the Senior Vice President of sales and marketing, the Executive Vice President of marketing, and is now the CEO and President. He became the president in November 2006 after being the Chief Executive Officer since December 2000.
Paul A. Huckfeldt- has been Vice President - Finance and Accounting since December 2010 and Chief Financial Officer since February 2011. Also has served as the Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer and Manager of Operations Accounting. Also led the company's Sarbanes-Oxeley implementation.
Alan D. Cole- The President - Hooker Upholstery since August 2008. Joined the Company in April 2007 as Executive Vice President – Upholstery Operations.
Raymond T. Harm- Is the Senior Vice President - Sales, joined the Company in 1999.
Aurthur G. Raymond Jr. - Senior Vice President of Casegoods Operations, joined the Company in February 2010.
Competition
Hooker furniture operates in a highly competitive industry which includes both foreign and domestic manufacturers. There are no dominant players in this market, which is full of a large number of small to medium sized manufacturers. Compared to Hooker Furniture, there are certain competitors who have significantly greater sales volumes and availability to financial resources. There are also overseas companies who have increased their presence in both sales volumes and financial resources as well. There are many competitive factors for the home furnishing industry. Some of these points include style, price, availability, distribution, quality and durability. In order to maintain a competitive advantage and be a successful company, Hooker Furniture puts in extensive effort to have the best longstanding customer and supplier relationships. Along with these close relationships, they believe their design capabilities, product value, ease of ordering and financial will give them the competitive advantages they desire.
Competitor Comparison
- Ethan Allen Interiors, Inc. - Ethan Allen is an established interior design company which does most fo their business in the United States but does have an established international department. They are a vertically integrated company, which allows them to control their own supply chain, controlling costs and operating expenses. [5] In 2011, they reported an operating revenue of over $648million. This number nearly triples that of Hooker Furniture. However, Ethan Allen was unable to turn a profit, and saw their net income come in at a net loss of over $8million.
- Furniture Brands International, Inc. - Furniture Brands is a globally operating company that prides itself on being one of the nations leading retailers, manufacturers and designers of home furniture. They market over eight brands, from Broyhill to Thomasvill Furnitures, in over five countries across the globe. [6] A big part of their business is located in Hong Kong, as well as Vietnam and the Phillipines. [7] In 2011, Furniture Brands International reported an operating revenue of $1.16 billion, much more than Hooker Furniture. However, just like Ethan Allen, they failed to convert these high revenues into a profit, losing over $39million.
- Stanley Furniture Co. Inc.- Stanley Furniture is a two branded company which specializes in their adult furniture brand, Stanley Furniture, and their youth/infant line, Youth America. After numerous transactions involving inventory, management and strategy, Stanley Furniture believes they are now in a position to implement their new strategy and once again turn a profit. [8] Just like Hooker Furniture's other two main competitors, Stanley Furniture reported a large amount of operating revenue (137M), yet managed to still lose money overall with a net income loss of over $43million.
Porters Five Forces
- Threat of New Entrants- Hooker Furniture faces a very low threat of new entrants into their industry. In order to fully enter this market and compete directly with Hooker Furntiure, a large amount of capital and human labor would have to be invested. This is highly unlikely as Hooker Furntiture has been in operation for over 85 years and still has yet to meet their overall goals.
- Buyer Power- Hooker Furniture prides itself of providing the best in customer service and relations. They strive to make the ordering and installation process as easy as possible. With that said, customers of this company still have most of the power because of the numerous other options they can turn to. Switching costs are relatively low, and they can easily take their business elsewhere. For these reasons. buyer power is said to be relatively high for customers of Hooker Furniture.
- Supplier Power- this is relatively low for Hooker Furniture. Suppliers of raw materials are relatively abundant, and thus they are not able to set their prices as high as they wish because large companies such as Hooker Furniture can take their business elsewhere to acquire their materials.
- Threat of Substitutes- Even though Hooker Furniture prides itself on offerring the highest quality products, there are still an abundance of substitutes available from other companies. For this company, the threat of substitutes is relatively high as there are many direct competitors to Hooker Furniture.
- Competitive Rivalry- The competitive rivalry this company faces is very high. There are a large amount of medium sized companies within the industry who have a greater amount of financial resources available to them. Hooker Furniture is always competing for increased market share and product growth, making their competitive rivalry very high.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Hooker Furniture has a distinctive product development process which is complimented by their strong marketing capabilities. This provides them with a competitive advantage by allowing them to produce and market over 1000 new products annually. This means that they have new products designed and developed every six months to replace the older products. Constantly entering new products to the market gives them a competitive advantage over those companies who may not update their product line so frequently. Hooker furniture also has a closely tied, family oriented ownership that gives them the cohesiveness necessary to compete with larger competitors.
Weaknesses
One of Hooker Furniture's biggest weaknesses is their lack of international presence. Over the past few years, they have hired an international sales specialist at their Vice President of international sales, but they still are far behind their competitors in this category. Once Hooker furniture establishes itself in the international market, their company will be taken to the next level.
Opportunities
Hooker furnitures lack of International presence is something they can and will improve on. This is a major opportunity for the company and will certainly be achieved within the next 5 years. Currently, Hooker Furniture offers products to its retailers in the upper to medium price range. By broadening their price range in order to appeal to a wider array of retailers, Hooker Furniture will provide itself with a number of new opportunities to appeal to customers they never before would have reached. This is very important for this company as there is a whole new market out there that they can take advantage of.
Threats
During the fiscal year of 2011, Hooker Furniture did business with just over 3900 customers, and none of these were responsible for over 4% of their overall revenue. With that said, the loss of one customer will not have an effect on their overall business operations. However, the loss of several major customers in a short period of time could have a serious material impact on the company.
Marketing Strategy
Product
Since Hooker Furniture started its business in 1924, it has specialized in offering the highest quality products in home furnishing. Today, their products lines include home furnishings, home entertainment systems that are capable of fitting TV's up for 76", home office furniture and luxury furniture. They also offer bedroom furniture for people of all ages, and dining. As of recently, they have began offering custom and leather seating.
Price
Hooker Furniture offers their products in the upper-medium and high end price niches. Their customer base is relatively small because their price ranges only go after a small percentage of potential buyers. Their high level of specialization and quality materials allows themselves to make profits even while selling at these high prices.
Place
Hooker Furniture is headquartered in Martinvsille, Virginia where they hold a number of corporate offices and distribution facilities. Along with this main location, Hooker Furniture employs hundreds of people at their North Carolina and other Virginia locations. They also import a large amount of their furnishings from Mexico and Central America.
Promotion
Each year, there is an International Home Furnishings Market that is held in High Point, North Carolina. This is where Hooker Furniture introduces their new product styles to the market. These new product launches are supported by promotions and solid public relations. They also have a lot of online marketing through their websites and social marketing such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
Financial Performance
Operating Margin
For the fiscal year of 2011, Hooker Furniture's operating margin decreased to 4.1million, or as it shows in the table, 1.9%. One year prior, operating margin was at 5.2million or 2.6%. There are a few reasons for this decrease in operating margin. During 2010, Hooker Furniture suffered a $500,000 casualty loss as a result of a fire in one of their warehouses. Along with this, there was a in increase in freight costs on imported products, and the company also took on restructuring and asset impairment charges. Even though the last column, "Operating margin, excluding restructuring and impairment charges" is considered to be a non-GAAP financial measure, it is very useful to investors in determing and evaluating the companies ongoing operations. This does not reflect the companies overall financial results, but it provides valuable insight to investors to inform them on the value of this company and the positive (or negative) direction they are heading. [9]
Financial Condition
In 2010, Hooker Furniture increased its total assets by $1.3 million, and this was mostly due to a $21.3 million increase in inventories. They also saw an increase of $1.8 million in net recievables. Typically, when a company sees an increase in net receivables, a few red flags can be waved because it normally means they are taking a longer time to collect on their sales. This can lead to numerous problems including not having enough liquidity on hand to pay off their short term debts. However, Hooker Furniture saw an increase in revenues and sales for this fiscal year, so their increase in net recievables makes sense, and there is no need to question their financial stability. Hooker Furniture's Net Working Capital, which is measured by current assets minus current liabilities, increased by $1.4 million, which is a good sign for the company and its investors. Had their net working capital decreased, this would mean that either their current assets decreased or their current liabilities increase. Either way this is not something an investor looks for when they are putting their hard earned money into a companies stock. The increase in current assets that Hooker Furniture realized was mostly due to its increase in inventories. The company anticipated an increase in sales, so they stocked up on inventory to account for this change in demand. There is also no need to worry about the decrease in cash on hand this company had over the past year, as this is simply due to the increased amount of money spent to bulk up their inventory. [10]
Risk Factors
- Economic Downturns- Hooker Furniture offers luxury interior design products, which means their company's success is at the mercy of the economy. If the economy falls into another recession like the one our country saw just a few years ago, the first thing people do is stop building homes, remodeling, and spending money on luxury products. This means that Hooker Furnitures sales and revenues are going to take a major hit until the economy recovers, which usually takes quite some time.
- Disruption in the supply chain- The main supplier this company imports from is based out of China. In fact, nearly 98% of imported producted are sourced out of China. [11] If something were to happen to this source, there is no telling what the direct impact on this company would be. Sourcing all of ones resources from one supplier has its positives and negatives. When all is going well, the positives greatly outweigh the negatives, but if something bad were to happen, it would have Hooker Furniture seriously reconsidering their supply chain strategy.
- Failure to anticipate changes- The interior design and furniture business is a rapidly changing and evolving one. Consumer tastes and preferences are always changing, and if this company fails to keep up with the change in times or does not anticipate future changes, they could potentially lose valuable market share to their competitors that could be very difficult to get back
- Negative changes in US dollar- Hooker Furniture imports most of thier resources from other countries. If the US dollar depreciates, the company could possibly face large losses as their costs are going to rise exponentially. This is a major risk for any company that holds a lot of thier operations overseas.
Stock Performance
From the chart above, we can see that stock performance for Hooker Furniture over the past year has varied greatly. Just one year ago, stock price was over $20/share, and now the price has seemed to settle around the $12 range. Even with all of these price fluctuations, Hooker Furniture has managed to show a $.30 profit per share. Along with the positive earnings per share, which shows Hooker Furniture was able to successfully turn a profit, they also gave out a $.40 dividend per share for their 10,757 shares outstanding. Over the past four fiscal years, Hooker Furniture has issued a 40cent dividend to their stockholders. There is no reason to believe this trend will not continue in the future, as the only time they do not issue a dividend is when they report a negative net income for the year.
References
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