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31-05-2017, 02:41 PM
Japan's Budget Furniture King Discounted His Way to a Fortune
by Jason Clenfield , Masatsugu Horie , and Grace Huang
May 31, 2017, 5:00 AM GMT+8
Embarrassed by the recall of thousands of kitchenware pots after they appeared to leak lead when heated, Japan’s discount-furniture king, Akio Nitori, took an unusual step. He hired a team of auto industry engineers to revamp his quality assurance and testing division.
Ten years later, every one of Nitori Holdings Co.’s products must survive a furniture torture chamber before they’re ready for showrooms. Chair backs are prodded with hydraulic presses. Towels are spun in centrifuges to see if they stretch. Technicians wrestle with the legs of coffee tables to make sure they’ll hold up to a rambunctious house party.
It’s unorthodox tactics like these -- and a willingness to borrow ideas from everywhere -- that have made Nitori one of Japan’s richest people and his namesake furniture company the country’s biggest. “People want it to be inexpensive, but it can’t be cheap,” he said in an interview at his headquarters, an austere office above one of his big-box stores on the outskirts of Tokyo. With short-cropped hair and black-rimmed glasses, he’s allowed himself a few splashes of color: a pink tie and a matching handkerchief. “Our products are getting better every year,” he said.
So are the financial results. In the 12 months through Feb. 20, Nitori Holdings did something no other public firm in Japan ever did: post a 30th consecutive year of increased profit to go along with ever-expanding sales. It’s a feat all the more remarkable given the country’s epic real-estate bust of the 1990s and the six recessions since.
More details in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...-a-fortune
by Jason Clenfield , Masatsugu Horie , and Grace Huang
May 31, 2017, 5:00 AM GMT+8
Embarrassed by the recall of thousands of kitchenware pots after they appeared to leak lead when heated, Japan’s discount-furniture king, Akio Nitori, took an unusual step. He hired a team of auto industry engineers to revamp his quality assurance and testing division.
Ten years later, every one of Nitori Holdings Co.’s products must survive a furniture torture chamber before they’re ready for showrooms. Chair backs are prodded with hydraulic presses. Towels are spun in centrifuges to see if they stretch. Technicians wrestle with the legs of coffee tables to make sure they’ll hold up to a rambunctious house party.
It’s unorthodox tactics like these -- and a willingness to borrow ideas from everywhere -- that have made Nitori one of Japan’s richest people and his namesake furniture company the country’s biggest. “People want it to be inexpensive, but it can’t be cheap,” he said in an interview at his headquarters, an austere office above one of his big-box stores on the outskirts of Tokyo. With short-cropped hair and black-rimmed glasses, he’s allowed himself a few splashes of color: a pink tie and a matching handkerchief. “Our products are getting better every year,” he said.
So are the financial results. In the 12 months through Feb. 20, Nitori Holdings did something no other public firm in Japan ever did: post a 30th consecutive year of increased profit to go along with ever-expanding sales. It’s a feat all the more remarkable given the country’s epic real-estate bust of the 1990s and the six recessions since.
More details in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...-a-fortune
Specuvestor: Asset - Business - Structure.