Sealy Corporation

Sealy Corporation, through its subsidiaries, is the largest bedding manufacturer in North America and produces a diversified line of mattress and foundation products. Sealy's conventional bedding products (mattresses and foundations) include the Sealy, Sealy Posturepedic and Sealy Posturepedic Luxury Collection. Sealy, as distinguished from most of its competitors, also manufactures many of the important component parts that are used inside the mattress. Sealy owns and operates a component-manufacturing subsidiary, with three plants that produce virtually all of the company's proprietary and patented mattress innerspring requirements and approximately half of its foundation components.

According to industry sales data compiled by the International Sleep Products Association (ISPA), a bedding industry trade group, approximately 700 manufacturers of mattresses and box springs make up the domestic conventional bedding industry, generating wholesale revenues estimated at approximately $4.7 billion during calendar year 2002. The market for conventional bedding represents more than 85% of the entire bedding market in North America. Approximately two-thirds of conventional bedding is sold through furniture stores and specialty sleep shops. Most of the remaining conventional bedding is sold through department stores, mass merchandisers and membership clubs. Sealy branded product is the most recognized in the U.S.A. and North America. Sealy also believes it to be the largest manufacturer of mattresses in the world.

Sealy sells its products through more than 7,000 retail outlets, which include furniture stores, national mass merchandisers, specialty sleep shops, department stores and warehouse clubs. Sealy manufactures most bedding to order and has adopted "just in time" production techniques in its manufacturing process to more efficiently serve its dealers' and customers' needs. Most bedding orders are scheduled, produced and shipped to retail warehouses within 72 hours of receipt. This rapid delivery capability allows Sealy to better satisfy customer demand for prompt shipments. Sealy operates 31 plants, which manufacture bedding in 20 states, three Canadian provinces, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Argentina, France, and Italy. Sealy operates a research and development center in High Point, North Carolina, with a staff that tests new materials and machinery, trains personnel, compares the quality of Sealy's products with those of its competitors and develops new products and processes.

Sealy, Texas, is a small town just outside of Houston. It was the home of Daniel Haynes, a cotton gin builder, who began making cotton-filled mattresses for his friends and neighbors in 1881. He went on to invent a machine that compressed cotton for use in mattresses, receiving a patent for his invention in 1889. His mattress became so popular that he sold patent rights to people in other markets, who also began building the product that, at the time, was known as the "Mattress from Sealy." In 1906, Haynes sold all of his patents and knowledge to a Texas company that took the name "Sealy." It was at this time that a young advertising executive named Earl Edwards launched Sealy on the road to national prominence.

To learn more about Sealy Corporation visit their website at www.Sealy.com.