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Mark Sarvary
Mark Sarvary is chief executive officer and president of Tempur Sealy International Inc. (formerly Tempur-Pedic International Inc.) and a member of the company's board of directors. Prior to joining the company in 2008, he was an industrial partner with CVC Capital Partners, a global private equity firm; served as president of Campbell Soup Co.'s North America division from 2004 to 2007; and was president of Campbell's Pepperidge Farm division from 2002 to 2004. From 1999 to 2002, Sarvary was CEO of J. Crew Group Inc. and worked at Nestle from 1993 to 1999, serving as president of Stouffer's frozen food division. Early in his career, Sarvary worked as a strategy consultant with Bain & Co. and held sales and marketing roles with IBM in Europe. Sarvary received a degree in physics from Kent University in the United Kingdom and holds an MBA from INSEAD Business School in France.
Ed Lane: In March 2013, Tempur-Pedic acquired Sealy and the deal created a $2.7 billion global bedding powerhouse. How is the new firm - Tempur Sealy International, which operates in 80 countries - performing in 2014 sales-wise and profit-wise?
Mark Sarvary: The company is performing well. It's important to put in context that Tempur-Pedic is a global company and has been since its inception. Tempur-Pedic is focused on a special area of the bedding industry, and its products are made with Tempur material. Its acquisition of Sealy in March of last year was a really big strategic evolution. The company went from being focused on one technology to being focused on all types of bedding being offered at a broad range of prices. And at the same time, Sealy went from being essentially a North American company - it had overseas performance, but the majority of its business was in North America - to being a global company. It was a big change for both sides of the merger. A year and a half later, I would say the merger has gone well. The financial performance of the business has excelled, given that an enormous amount of change had to go through both sets of organizations.
From a sales point of view, the companies are both growing. Tempur last quarter had an all-time-record quarter...