"We believe overall economic concerns are contributing to a weakness in consumer confidence that is negatively affecting the consumers' willingness to invest in big-ticket, discretionary purchases like furniture."
Mickey Holliman, Chairman and CEO, Furniture Brands International

Furniture Brands International (FBN) said today that demand at middle and high price points remains weak.

W.G. (Mickey) Holliman, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, said, "When we released our third quarter results at the end of October, we were no longer seeing the same strength in incoming business at our upper-end companies we had seen in the first half of the year. We also had seen no improvement in order activity at our middle-price companies. Those trends have not changed. We believe overall economic concerns are contributing to a weakness in consumer confidence that is negatively affecting the consumers' willingness to invest in big-ticket, discretionary purchases like furniture. We expect these order trends to continue through the balance of the year.

"As a result of our seeing no improvement in order trends and our desire to maintain inventories at an acceptable level," Mr. Holliman continued, "we are taking temporary down-time at certain domestic manufacturing facilities, which will affect earnings performance in the fourth quarter. We feel these steps are appropriate and are consistent with our stated goal to manage working capital effectively."

Mr. Holliman concluded, "We currently estimate our fourth quarter earnings per share will be in the $0.36 to $0.38 range, the lower end of the range given at the end of October. We will report the actual results of the fourth quarter on January 26, 2005."

Furniture Brands International is America's largest home furnishings manufacturer, manufacturing and sourcing its products under six brand names - Broyhill, Lane, Thomasville, Henredon, Drexel Heritage and Maitland-Smith.