We’d like to thank all the employees who attended this morning’s Town Hall Meeting — both at Corporate and around the globe via live broadcast. We look forward to an exciting future at L&P!
We’d like to thank all the employees who attended this morning’s Town Hall Meeting — both at Corporate and around the globe via live broadcast. We look forward to an exciting future at L&P!
Last week, we announced an agreement to acquire Elite Comfort Solutions (ECS), solidifying Leggett & Platt’s position as a global leader in bedding technology and manufacturing.
Today, our CEO Karl Glassman hosted an employee Town Hall Meeting to discuss this important acquisition. Our employees from around the globe were able to ask questions of our executive leadership team and gain more insight into the future direction of L&P.
As excited as we are about strengthening our company with the addition of ECS, this is only week one of the journey. The acquisition is expected to be completed in January 2019.
Families display certain common traits and behaviors, generation after generation, that have nothing to do with genetics. These non-genetic markers are passed down through shared perceptions, beliefs, and actions, as surely as hazel eyes and curly hair. The same is true for companies.
At Leggett & Platt, we recently set out to revise the competencies in our annual performance review, and accidentally found ourselves deconstructing our corporate DNA. We started the project with 15 competencies – things like strategic thinking, decision making, interpersonal skills, and communication. Instead of simply trying to whack a few that seemed less important, we started with a clean sheet of paper and our company history book. Looking back over 130 years, our leaders displayed certain common qualities, no matter what the business challenge of the era. When we distilled this “Leggett DNA,” we found eight key qualities that drive our collective success. Eureka! These characteristics, expressed as actions, reflect our culture and the way we lead.
A member of the Leggett team: Continue reading
Board Chairman & CEO David S. Haffner
For four full decades—from the 1960’s through the 1990’s—Leggett & Platt achieved growth of 15% per year (on average) in earnings, dividends, and stock price, largely by pursuing a strategy that focused intently on revenue growth. Over those 40 years revenue ballooned from $7 million to $4.3 billion, earnings grew about 1000‐fold,and our stock split approximately every 5 years. But as we entered the new millennium, our strategy seemed to lose its effectiveness. For the five years ending December 2007, Leggett & Platt’s stock priced moved sideways while the S&P 500 index achieved an 80% return. The desire for topline growth had led us to make certain acquisitions for which it’s now clear we paid too much, given their failure to meet expected performance levels.
We needed to make a change in strategy.