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Gary McCray Now VP of Heritage Home

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

From Furniture Today

Gary McCray.

Heritage Home Group has named Gary McCray senior vice president of its Designer Brand Sales, a new position. He departs his position as president of Lane Venture, one of several companies in the Heritage Home stable.

Heritage Home was formed by KPS Capital Management, which recently acquired various assets of the former Furniture Brands International, including Broyhill, Drexel Heritage, Henredon, Hickory Chair, Lane, Lane Venture, La Barge, Maitland-Smith, Pearson and Thomasville.

McCray will report to Ira Glazer, president and CEO of Heritage Home. He also will lead the sales organization that supports the company's Henredon, Drexel Heritage, Hickory Chair, Lane Venture, Pearson and LaBarge brands.

In a statement, Glazer said, "As we begin the process of transforming Heritage Home Group into an industry leader, we are pleased to promote Gary McCray to this important position leading sales on behalf of many of our iconic brands. Gary is a well-respected industry veteran and we believe he will be very successful in this new position given his strong track record at Lane Venture.

"Our new company has a very bright future - with the operational expertise and financial resources of KPS Capital Partners, our new owner - and we are excited to build the team that will execute our growth strategy." Glazer added.

McCray said he looks forward to his new role at the company.

"I am honored to be part of Heritage Home Group and the leadership team headed by Ira Glazer," he said in a statement. "Our brands have incredible growth potential, and I am excited to build a sales organization that will enable us to most efficiently deliver our products to customers."

McCray joined Venture Furniture, one of Lane Venture's predecessors, in 1979 in the engineering and product development area. He has been president of Lane Venture since 2008 and has been involved in all areas of the business, the company said. He also serves as vice chairman of the International Casual Furniture Association.

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Housing Starts Surge to Five-Year High

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NAHB and Wells Fargo Securities

November's housing starts data were easily the best numbers since the recession ended four and a half years ago. Overall starts increased 22.7 percent, with single-family starts rising 20.8 percent and multifamily starts jumping 26.8 percent. With the increase, housing starts are now at their highest level for this cycle.

While November's increase is welcome and is supported by yesterday's rise in the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, we would caution against reading too much into the increase. We have repeatedly noted throughout the year that new home construction was being restrained, particularly in the South, which accounts for roughly half of the nation's homebuilding activity, by unseasonably wet weather. Once the rain stopped, construction ramped back up.

November is typically a seasonally slow month, with building activity tapering off as the work days get shorter and time is lost for the holidays. Even small increases in building activity coming at a time that activity usually declines can be magnified to big seasonally adjusted increases.

Housing Permits a Better Read on the Housing Market

Housing permits likely provide a more accurate assessment of the underlying momentum in the housing market. Overall permits fell 3.1 percent in November, but remained above the key one million unit pace for the second month in a row. Permits for new single-family homes rose 2.1 percent to a 634,000 unit pace. November single-family permits are nearly 100,000 units below starts, which suggest we will likely see some payback in coming months. Even if starts give back some of November's gains, the underlying trend remains extremely positive.