Sealy Management Co., Inc. history

Wuliger set out immediately to energize the 136-year-old Stearns & Foster brand, launching the label's first national advertising campaign since 1909.

The company bought its first Sealy license in 1924, when Frank Wuliger, son of the founder, inherited the presidency of Ohio Mattress.

In 1939 Frank called his son, Ernest, home from his second year of classes at the University of Chicago to help run the family business.

Founded in 1946, Sealy & Company has a rich history within the industrial real estate sector.

In 1956 Ohio Mattress acquired the Sealy Mattress Co. of Houston, Texas, signaling the start of Wuliger's push to dominate the Sealy organization and the mattress industry.

Seven years of appeals brought the case before the Supreme Court in 1967, when justices ultimately found Sealy in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The case came to court in 1974, and within four months, a jury ruled in favor of Ohio-Sealy and awarded it triple damages of $20.4 million.

Sealy executed the acquisition and disposition of a 3.9 million square foot portfolio of assets, one of the Southeast's largest industrial property sales in 1986, and harvested the proceeds to re-invest with their proven buying strategy.

One holdout, Sealy Mattress Co. of New Jersey, filed suit to block Ohio Mattress, but gave in before the end of 1987.

Wuliger's abrupt exit&mdash well as the company's 1990 assumption of the Sealy Corp. name--signaled the firm's shift from an entrepreneurial operation to a modern, consolidated corporation.