Summary of FURNITURE BRANDS INTERNATIONAL INC

Item 2. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
Our Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operation ("MD&A") is provided in addition to the accompanying unaudited consolidated financial statements and notes to assist readers in understanding our results of operations, financial condition, and cash flows. The various sections of this MD&A contain a number of forward-looking statements. Words such as "expects," "goals," "plans," "believes," "continues," "may," and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. In addition, any statements that refer to projections of our future financial performance, our anticipated growth and trends in our businesses, and other characterizations of future events or circumstances are forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on our current expectations and could be affected by the uncertainties and risk factors described throughout this and previous filings and particularly in the "Risk Factors" in Part I, Item 1A of our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008.
OVERVIEW
We are one of the nation's leading designers, manufacturers, sourcers, and retailers of home furnishings. We market through a wide range of retail channels, from mass merchant stores to single-branded and independent dealers to specialized interior designers. We serve our customers through some of the best known and most respected brands in the furniture industry, including Broyhill, Lane, Thomasville, Drexel Heritage, Henredon, Hickory Chair, Pearson, Laneventure, and Maitland-Smith.
Through these brands, we design, manufacture, source, market, and distribute
(i) case goods, consisting of bedroom, dining room, and living room furniture,
(ii) stationary upholstery products, consisting of sofas, loveseats, sectionals, and chairs, (iii) motion upholstered furniture, consisting of recliners and sleep sofas, (iv) occasional furniture, consisting of wood, metal and glass tables, accent pieces, home entertainment centers, and home office furniture, and (v) decorative accessories and accent pieces. Our brands are featured in nearly every price and product category in the residential furniture industry. Each of our brands designs, manufactures, sources, and markets home furnishings, targeting specific customers in relation to style and price point.
• Broyhill has collections of mid-priced furniture, including both wood furniture and upholstered products, in a wide range of styles and product categories including bedroom, dining room, living room, occasional, youth, home office, and home entertainment.

• Lane focuses primarily on mid-priced upholstered furniture, including motion and stationary furniture with an emphasis on home entertainment and family rooms.

• Thomasville has both wood furniture and upholstered products in the mid- to upper-price ranges and also manufactures and markets promotional-priced case goods and ready-to-assemble furniture.

• Drexel Heritage markets both case goods and upholstered furniture under the brand names Heritage, Drexel, and dh, in categories ranging from mid- to premium-priced.

• Henredon specializes in both wood furniture and upholstered products in the premium-price category.

• Hickory Chair manufactures a premium-priced brand of wood and upholstered furniture, offering traditional and modern styles.

• Pearson offers contemporary and traditional styles of finely tailored upholstered furniture in the premium-price category.

• Laneventure markets a premium-priced outdoor line of wicker, rattan, bamboo, exposed aluminum, and teak furniture.

• Maitland-Smith designs and manufactures premium hand crafted, antique-inspired furniture, accessories, and lighting, utilizing a wide range of unique materials. Maitland-Smith markets under both the Maitland-Smith and LaBarge brand names.

In the first quarter of 2008, we sold Hickory Business Furniture, a wholly owned subsidiary that designs and manufactures business furniture. As a result, this business unit has been reflected as a discontinued operation in all periods presented in this Form 10-Q.

BUSINESS TRENDS AND STRATEGY
We experienced modest sales growth in our third fiscal quarter compared to our second fiscal quarter. We believe sales continue to be depressed primarily due to wavering consumer confidence and a number of ongoing factors in the global economies that have negatively impacted consumers' discretionary spending. These ongoing factors include lower home values, prolonged foreclosure activity throughout the country, continued high levels of unemployment, and reduced access to consumer credit. These factors are outside of our control, but have a direct impact on our sales due to resulting weak levels of consumer confidence and reduced consumer spending.
In order to offset the impact of these economic conditions, we took several significant steps in 2008 and continue to take steps in 2009 to reduce costs and preserve cash. In our third fiscal quarter, we experienced benefits from these measures including increased gross margin rates and decreased sales, general, and administrative expenses.
The more significant actions taken by us in 2008 include closing four domestic manufacturing facilities, reducing our domestic workforce by approximately 1,400 employees and consolidating our administrative and support functions. Through this prolonged economic downturn, we continue to focus on reducing our costs and preserving cash. These measures include reconfiguring manufacturing facilities and processes to eliminate waste and improve efficiency, managing product inventory levels better to reflect consumer demand, transforming our transportation methods to be more cost effective, exiting unprofitable retail locations, limiting our credit exposure to weak retail partners and discontinuing unprofitable licensing arrangements. As a result of these initiatives to counteract this environment, the following charges and costs are included in our results of operations:
• We incurred costs of $1.5 million and $7.2 million in the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2009, respectively, and $4.2 million and $14.0 million in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2008, respectively, related to downtime in our factories.

• We incurred charges of $1.9 million and $4.2 million in the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2009, respectively, and $1.7 million and $1.8 million in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2008, respectively, associated with severance actions, which in 2009 related to reductions of approximately 700 employees. These reductions included direct labor employees and indirect support employees in our manufacturing costs and sales, general, and administrative costs.

• We incurred expense of $3.3 million and $5.3 million in the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2009, respectively, and $9.9 million and $23.3 million in the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2008, respectively, associated with closed retail store locations, which related primarily to occupancy costs, lease termination costs, and lease liabilities.

These charges and costs contributed to our loss from continuing operations of $23.0 million and $43.1 million for the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2009, respectively.
In addition to these cost savings measures, we continue to focus on leveraging the power of our brands through innovative sales and marketing initiatives to increase our market share and to offset the impact of the economic downturn. These initiatives include:
• Increasing our e-commerce programs to help drive more consumer interest in our products and create more demand for our retail partners.

• Offering products that are differentiated from our competition through pre-launch testing that helps predict end-market acceptance.

• Conducting consumer segmentation analysis to assist retailers in allocating marketing resources.

• Growing a global supply chain that minimizes dealer inventory requirements.

• Improving product development and managing product inventory levels better to reflect consumer demand through consumer testing.

While we believe that these sales and marketing initiatives will positively impact our sales and particularly benefit our sales performance when economic conditions improve, we remain cautious about future sales as we cannot predict how long the economy and consumer retail environment will remain weak.