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Serta International News

Serta International asserts that it's one of the world's top mattress makers (behind rival Sealy). It's a leading mattress supplier to hotels and motels, including Hilton and Waldorf. Its Perfect Sleeper mattress line, on the market since the 1930s, is the best-selling premium mattress in the US. Serta's top-of-the-line mattress collection is sold under the Perfect Day name. It boasts more than 25 manufacturing facilities in North America. In 2004 Serta, Inc. (originally founded in 1931 by 13 mattress makers who then licensed the Serta name) was taken over by its largest licensee National Bedding (NB). NB then reorganized and renamed itself Serta International, now owned by Ares Corporate Opportunities Fund.

Serta Inc

Serta, Inc. is the second largest manufacturer and distributor of sleeping mattresses in the world, directly behind Sealy, Inc. Although the company has been in business since the early 1930s, it was during the 1990s that Serta grew to become one of the dominant firms in the industry. Serta has a list of accomplishments that would impress any industry analyst, including such significant achievements as: outperforming industry sales growth by more than two and a half times since the beginning of the 1990s; representing more than 30 percent of the total mattress manufacturers' growth, comprised of over 700 firms, since 1989; maintaining double digit sales increases from 1994 to the present, the only major mattress manufacturer to do so; and developing not only to become one of the leading mattress brands throughout Canada, but growing to become one of the largest suppliers to hotels, motels, and holiday resorts around the world. From 1989 to 1997, Serta reported that it had captured a 17 percent market share of the entire mattress industry. Not surprisingly, this kind of market dominance could only be achieved and sustained by means of an extensive network of 31 factories across the United States and Canada, as well as 23 manufacturing facilities located in such diverse countries as Venezuela, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Mexico, India, Iceland, and Chile.

During the 1990s, Serta made a major capital investment to improve the equipment at its Research and Development center. State-of-the-art testing equipment such as the Comfort Sensor, which enabled engineers to measure pressure points on the body, contributed to the company's ability to translate ideas and concepts into industry innovations. This attention to research and development led to the introduction of the Serta Triple Beam bed frame, widely regarded as the strongest and most durable in the industry, and the Perfect Night luxury mattress collection, which soon became Serta's most successful product to date. Astute enough to coordinate this major investment in research and development with a comprehensive marketing strategy, Serta in 1992 tripled its advertising investment. A year later, the company introduced one of the most successful advertising campaigns in the history of the industry with the tag line, "Serta: We Make The World's Best Mattress." The campaign was designed to play on the emotions of customers, while communicating the company's values of comfort, quality, and trust. What was most unique about this particular advertising campaign, however, was that it specifically targeted women, proven through the company's marketing research to be the primary buyers of mattresses for their households.

By the end of 1998, Serta had developed into a $670 million company, with 31 mattress factories and facilities throughout North America, and 23 plants and offices overseas. With its position as the second largest manufacturer of mattresses in the world quite secure, Serta is confident of and preparing to become number one in the industry.