Nebraska Furniture Mart

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Retail
Founded	1937 (1937-MM)
Founder(s)	Rose Blumkin
Headquarters	Omaha, Nebraska
Number of locations	3
Parent	Berkshire Hathaway
Website	nfm.com

Nebraska Furniture Mart is the largest home furnishing store in North America selling Furniture, Flooring, Appliances and Electronics. NFM was founded in 1937 by Mrs. B (Rose Blumkin) in Omaha, Nebraska. She worked in the business until age 103. In 1983, Mrs. B sold a majority interest to Berkshire Hathaway with the famous handshake deal with Warren Buffett. NFM now has three stores. The Omaha store is over 420,000 square feet (39,000 m²) of retail space and is on 77 acres (310,000 m²) of land. The Kansas City, Kansas store is also 420,000 square feet (39,000 m²) of retail space and is on 88 acres (360,000 m²) of land and sits across from the Kansas Speedway. The third store is in Des Moines, Iowa and is 24,000 square feet (2,200 m²) and sells appliances, flooring and televisions.

In the early 1990s, NFM opened a state of the art electronics and appliance store NFM Mega Mart which sells computers, software, music, videos and personal electronics items as well as TVs and appliances. In the early 2000s, the Mega Mart was branded like the other NFM buildings on campus as the Nebraska Furniture Mart Appliance and Electronics Store. In the Fall of 2007, The state-of-the art store was completely revamped from the inside out and includes a 200-foot (61 m) overhead warehouse connector and over 600 active video displays. Over 30 new jobs were added plus more cashiering stations and 12 new fully operational dream kitchens. The overhead connector connects the Appliance, Electronics and Computer Store to the 651,000-square-foot (60,500 m²) Distribution Center. Four exclusive shops were added including Sony, Bose, Apple and HP. Cox (Omaha only) has its own full service customer service area. Nebraska Furniture Mart also owns Homemakers Furniture in Urbandale, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines.

"Mrs. B"

Rose Blumkin (b. 1893, d. 1998) was born Rose Gorelick outside Minsk, Belarus. She moved to the United States in 1917. She started Nebraska Furniture Mart in the basement of her husband's pawn shop in 1937. She continued to be involved in day-to-day operations until shortly before her death at the age of 104. Although gifted at mental arithmetic, she was unable to read, write or even sign her name.

See also

• Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center

References

• Lowenstein, Roger. Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist. Random House, 1995, (pp. 246-256), ISBN 067941584x

External links

• Nebraska Furniture Mart
• Mrs. B's Story at Nebraska Furniture Mart website