Dallas-based home and holiday décor superstore At Home has named Brad Weston chief executive officer, filling a job vacated last year by longtime CEO Lee Bird.
Weston joins the company on June 3 with more than three decades of retail experience, most recently as CEO of Party City and before that chief executive at Petco. Earlier in his career, he held senior merchandising jobs at Dick’s Sporting Goods and May Department Stores.
“At Home is a Dallas success story with an amazing history of enabling customers to make their house a home,” Weston said in an email. “I’m looking forward to getting to know more of the team and working with them to write At Home’s next chapter.”
It’s unclear how At Home is performing as a private company, but executive chairman Erik Ragatz said Weston was hired “to drive At Home forward in our next chapter of growth.”
Bird left At Home at the end of last year, more than two years after it was taken private in July 2021 by Hellman & Friedman in a $2.8 billion leveraged buyout. Its total store count hasn’t grown much since then.
Bird had big plans to grow the company, which now has 266 stores including 40 in Texas, to a chain of 600 home superstores. Bird led the company for 11 years transforming it from a chain of 58 Garden Ridge stores with $364 million in revenue to 268 stores with almost $2 billion in annual sales.
When Bird left abruptly, he was replaced by an office of the CEO with president and chief merchandising officer Jeff Evans, chief financial officer Jerry Murray and chief operating officer Ashley Sheetz. They continue in their jobs and Ragatz is chairman.
Weston led Party City through bankruptcy last year where the company shed $1 billion in debt, closed less than 100 locations and emerged with more than 750 stores. The pandemic weakened the company as people canceled events and celebrations and a helium shortage sapped balloon sales.
Weston said in a press release that At Home is “an influential brand with a long runway for growth” and that its legacy as a “disruptive retailer, offering inspirational looks across styles and categories at compelling prices, remains a towering strength.”
Still, consumer choices for home goods at all prices are plentiful.
While some longtime home retailers such as Pier 1 Imports and Bed Bath & Beyond ended up closing their stores during the pandemic, At Home’s biggest competitor TJX’s HomeGoods has been growing, and now its sister chain Homesense is expanding, too.
TJX is bringing its Homesense chain to Texas and opened in Fort Worth’s Alliance Town Center in March. Homesense will open in Southlake later this year in a former Bed Bath & Beyond.
While At Home operates bigger stores of 100,000 square feet and stocks 45,000 items, Amazon, Walmart, Target and home improvement retailers Home Depot and Lowe’s have focused more on their home and holiday merchandise. Even traditional supermarket chains Kroger and H-E-B have substantial home sections in their bigger stores.
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