One of Bob Maricich’s biggest career accomplishments was almost a disaster. In 2008, he left his CEO position at Century Furniture to helm the World Market Center in Las Vegas—seemingly a good move, until he learned it was fast becoming insolvent.

But in that turmoil, he found success. In 2011, he orchestrated a deal with Bain Capital and Oaktree Capital Management that ultimately reshaped the industry’s trade show system, wherein Maricich purchased three major High Point properties and merged them with World Market Center to form International Market Centers. Later, he added AmericasMart and the Atlanta Decorative Arts Center to the company’s portfolio, and in 2023, IMC became Andmore.

“There [were] a lot of lessons learned,” Maricich tells host Dennis Scully on The Business of Home Podcast. “[There’s] the Warren Buffett saying that when others are greedy, be careful; and when everybody else is careful, be greedy. The best opportunities come out of the most challenging times. You can go back and look at American capitalism from the beginning, and you get these sea changes, whether they’re financial or geographic—and there can be some great value creation.”

After more than a decade helming the trade show giant, Maricich has stepped back from day-to-day operations, but as executive chairman of the board, he remains a keen observer of the industry he helped transform. Elsewhere in the episode, he talks about his winding career path, what he’s learned about working with private equity, and where he believes AI will have the greatest impact on the business.

Crucial insight: Maricich’s watershed moment came in late 2009, when he began courting private equity firms to seize the opportunity to build IMC. He learned quickly that while these firms brought plenty of money and expertise to the table, they lacked a crucial ingredient. “The private equity people have all the capital in the world, but what they don’t have are the good ideas. So if you have a good idea that’s scalable, they can be great partners.”

Key quote: “I learned as much in my 60s working with Bain than I did in the previous 30 or 40 years of my career. One of the lead senior partners said, ‘Bob, in God we trust—and everyone else, bring data. They were just 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, [meaning the events were targeting entirely different demographics]. I almost incredulously 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. They could never get over this thought that if Las Vegas had any success, it was going to be detrimental to High Point.”

This episode is sponsored by Loloi and Resource Furniture. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The Thursday Show

Host Dennis Scully and BOH executive editor Fred Nicolaus discuss the biggest news in the design world, including a proposed quartz ban in California, the decline of midcentury modern, and how designers should feel about AI agents. Later, Suzanne Tucker, chair of The San Francisco Fall Show, joins the podcast to discuss the upcoming event.

This episode is sponsored by Joon Loloi and NKBA. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.