Bob Maricich played a key role in transforming High Point. After stepping down from his CEO role at Century Furniture in 2008, he assumed leadership of the World Market Center in Las Vegas. Although the acquisition appeared promising, the venue was sliding toward bankruptcy. Amid this crisis, Maricich identified an opportunity. He negotiated a partnership with Bain Capital and Oaktree Capital Management that altered the trade-show environment of the sector. By acquiring three prominent High Point sites and combining them with the Las Vegas complex, he created International Market Centers. Subsequent expansions added AmericasMart and the Atlanta Decorative Arts Center to the holdings, and in 2023 the entity was renamed Andmore.
After more than a decade helming the trade show giant, Maricich has stepped back from day-to-day operations. As executive chairman of the board, he remains a keen observer of the industry he helped transform. He tells host Dennis Scully on The Business of Home Podcast that the best opportunities often come out of the most challenging times. He points to the Warren Buffett saying that when others are greedy, be careful; and when everybody else is careful, be greedy. You can look at American capitalism from the beginning, he says, and see these sea changes, whether they’re financial or geographic—and there can be some great value creation.
Maricich’s watershed moment came in late 2009, when he began courting private equity firms to seize the opportunity to build International Market Centers. He learned quickly that while these firms brought plenty of money and expertise to the table, they lacked a key ingredient. “The private equity people have all the capital in the world, but what they don’t have are the good ideas,” he says. “So if you have a good idea that’s scalable, they can be great partners.”
The data revealed a major flaw in the industry’s strategy. A lead senior partner at Bain told Maricich, “Bob, in God we trust—and everyone else, bring data.” They were amazed that people in the furniture industry made decisions emotionally and ignored the data, which was very clear: 85 percent of attendants in Las Vegas didn’t go to High Point. This meant the events were targeting entirely different demographics. Maricich looked at some of these companies and said, “You’re missing all these up-to-bats.” But the emotional part of it was so charged that they could never get over the thought that if Las Vegas had any success, it was going to be detrimental to High Point.
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He has learned as much in his 60s working with Bain than he did in the previous 30 or 40 years of his career. He says that when private equity firms partner with a company that has a good idea, they can build something substantial. This partnership allows for growth that might not happen otherwise. The focus on data over emotion has changed how the industry operates.
Industry Trends and Future Predictions
Host Dennis Scully and Fred Nicolaus discuss major design news, including a California quartz ban and the decline of midcentury modern. They also examine how designers should feel about AI agents.
The episode wraps with a conversation about the upcoming San Francisco Fall Show.