Content about managing director

The board of directors of Masco Corp. has appointed Donald Parfet as a director, according to a Dec. 4 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He will serve on the board’s audit committee.

Parfet, 60, is the managing director of Apjohn Group, a business development company, and a general partner of Apjohn Ventures Fund Limited Partnership, a venture capital fund. He currently serves on the boards of directors of Kelly Services and Rockwell Automation.

The State of the Nation’s Housing is, in a word, complicated.

Housing markets are showing signs of reviving, concluded "The State of the Nation’s Housing" report released by the Cambridge, Mass.-based Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. But we’re not out of the woods, yet. 

September housing starts showed double-digit increases compared with both last year and last month, according to data released this morning by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Housing starts came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 658,000, up 15% from the August rate of 572,000, and up 10.2% compared with September 2010.

The figure of 658,000 was the highest total housing-starts figure since April 2010, when starts stood at 687,000.

The two-day HIRI Home Improvement Industry Summit to be held Oct. 19 to 20 in Chicago at the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza, will kick off with a presentation examining economic turmoil and a view from Wall Street.

Josh Rosenbaum, managing director – global industrial group for UBS, will offer thoughts on the direction of the economy, the possibility of another recession, the mood on Wall Street and the unemployment situation. The presentation will address the hottest issues facing the economy and the industry from a Wall Street perspective.

Richard Tadler will be stepping down from the Lumber Liquidators board of directors, effective June 30, 2011.

Tadler has been with the board since 2004, when TA Associates, the private equity firm of which he is a managing director, originally invested in the company. TA Associates divested its interest in the Toano, Va.-based retailer of hardwood flooring in 2009.

Arlington, Va. — At last year’s Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI) Spring Conference, the assembled researchers, guests and partners — all thirsty for good news — were told by Morgan Stanley analyst Ian Sugarman that the modest, pre-bubble year of 1999 is the “new normal.”


Fast-forward to this year’s event, held here at the Doubletree Crystal City, and a very similar group of attendees were told to brace for even more simulated time travel — this time to 1996.


While the National Association Home Builders recently reported home size is on the decline, a survey from John Burns Real Estate Consulting found more consumers expect to buy bigger houses (44%) than smaller houses (22%). Who's right? Here's what we heard.