Furniture Company Building Up Its Reputation
This isn't a first-time occurrence. They've made the Forbes list for five of the past six years. "It's a terrific honor," said Brad Nielson, the Mity-Lite Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial officer.
The company boasts 500 employees total, with 350 of those located in its Orem headquarters. Currently, Mity-Lite's in a growth phase in its business. The company has purchased nine acres of land and it's building a 30,000 square-foot facility with plenty of room to expand even more. The company's a month away from completing that building, which will be used for office space and warehousing.
This is just the latest growing experience for Mity-Lite. The company's grown from a small startup company to a multi-million dollar enterprise. It makes lightweight durable furniture, such as tables, chairs, and office furniture, that can take more wear than the typical office furniture. According to Mity-Lite officials, their furniture is really durable.
On its sales video, it shows a man trying to pound the life out of one of Mity-Lite's tables and one of its competitor's tables. Mity-Lite feels the video speaks for itself. It uses ABS plastic in its tables, which is the same material used in motorcycle helmets, football helmets and super durable luggage. Have you ever seen the commercial with the gorilla throwing the suitcase around? That's the same material Mity-Lite uses in its tables.
The company markets pretty extensively to churches, universities and other institutions where furniture gets heavily used. Depending on which church you belong to, you may have seen some 30-inch by 96-inch tables at your church dinner and festival. And that's part of the problem. Furniture just is not as sexy these days to stockholders as the exciting and dramatic dot.coms. "Kiplinger's called us a boring but beautiful stock," Nielson said. "That about sums it up."
Mity-Lite understands and has a sense of humor about the whole thing. "For heaven's sakes, here we are making tables," said Greg Wilson, the CEO and president of the company. It's tough to be the stable, hardworking, table-making guy when the flashy dot.coms are dancing around, dazzling investors. But they have the last laugh, compared to some of the Internet companies. "We actually make money," Wilson said.
Wilson started the company in 1987. He was in the furniture business, and a customer came to him and said he needed some really durable banquet tables. There was nothing on the market that satisfied this person. So Wilson put up the startup money himself and his company designed, engineered and came up with a durable and lightweight banquet table with folding legs that could be put away in a small storage space. After six months, his startup capital ran out and he sought some new investors.
But his furniture caught on, and in 1994, they went public. The value of the company has grown stunningly. It went from having just investment capital in 1987, to having a market value of 15 million dollars when it went public in 1994. The market value of the company today is 75 million dollars. The growth rate of companies in the furniture industry is around 4-5 percent. Mity-Lite's growth rate averages 25 percent. The profitability in their industry hovers around 12 percent. Mity-Lite's growth rate is in the 18-20 percent range.
The company's stock has fluctuated recently, due to one of the companies it acquired in another state in an effort to turn the company around, but it has high hopes for this particular company. "It's an opportunity to turn this company around," Wilson said. "But the market overreacted to that."
Mity-Lite sells to churches, universities and 911 centers...And the company sees great things in its future. "We have a drive to succeed," Nielson said.