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LOS ANGELES — Mattress Firm Holding Corp. CEO Steve Stagner said it’s time for the fast-growing chain to take an acquisition break.
Addressing 1,400 employees of the Mattress Firm family of brands here at the company’s largest-ever BEDTalks, its annual leadership conference, Stagner said the company intends to hold off on acquisitions, a key to its rapid growth over the years, for a while .
Stagner called that “a welcome surprise.” It was greeted by a loud round of applause.
His address, which won him a standing ovation, kicked off BEDTalks, held at the JW Marriott here in downtown Los Angeles. The four-day event was packed with inspirational speeches, company overviews and awards presentations. It included surprise appearances by two Hollywood A-listers: Actor and race car driver Patrick Dempsey and comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.
Dempsey, who promotes the Simmons Beautyrest Black line, was interviewed onstage by Cory Ludens, vice president of culture and leadership development, and the enthusiastic master of ceremonies for BEDTalks, while DeGeneres joined 1,000 company employees to help paint and refurbish Evergreen Elementary School in East Los Angeles as part of the company’s “Give Big. Sleep Happy” initiative.
Another speaker was civil rights activist Ruby Bridges, who, at age 6 became the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South, a 1960 event later captured in a Norman Rockwell painting. Her son, Shaun, works for Mattress Firm.
Stagner, the chief architect of the company’s growth, which has taken Mattress Firm to more than 2,000 stores and an estimated $2 billion in annual sales, set the tone for the event by talking about the “great transformation” that occurred when the retailer added Sleep Train, the West Coast bedding powerhouse, to its family of brands last year. “The Great Transformation” was the theme of this year’s BEDTalks.
Standing in front of three stacks of building blocks representing the company’s family of brands, Stagner likened the growth of Mattress Firm to the tower building in the Jenga block game, in which players pull blocks out and stack them on top of the tower. Jenga is Swahili for “to build,” Stagner said, adding that Mattress Firm was built “piece by piece” by the companies and leaders in the room, which he later called “a collection of the very best of the very best.”
Mattress Firm has the opportunity and challenge of building a national chain, Stagner said. “We have the opportunity to make history, American history,” he said. “How often is a household brand birthed in America?”
A few minutes later Dale Carlsen, the former Sleep Train CEO who is now president and chief strategy officer of Mattress Firm, revealed the company’s new vision: To be the preferred choice for better sleep.
