Profits come out of the woodwork at IHFC.

• Position: International Home Furnishing Center

When the International Home Furnishing Center's financial figures were made public in March, it confirmed what former shareholders suspected. Apparently, the owners of the "Big Building" in High Point are not big on sharing.

Two years ago, the major shareholders in IHFC, which leases exhibit space to furniture makers during the April and October markets, forced a buyout of 40 investors, who together held 4.9%. Some of those squeezed out now think they know why. A filing by Bassett, Va.-based Bassett Furniture Industries Inc., which has a 41% stake, shows that privately held IHFC, which paid no dividends in 1996 and only $2.7 million in 1995, suddenly turned generous, divvying up $51.4 million among the remaining five shareholders in 1997.

Were those stakeholders - Bassett, Jefferson-Pilot Corp., the High Point Enterprise newspaper, Enterprise Publisher Randall Terry and Altavista, Va.-based The Lane Co. - hoarding for themselves all along? IHFC officials aren't talking, but the filing shows the company, which turned a $15.1 million profit in 1997, had $77.9 million in retained earnings on its balance sheet in 1996.

"I didn't have access to the books, but I've been around the furniture business for 50 years, and I knew they had to be making money," says ex-investor Ken Owen, former vice president of defunct Cassard Furniture Co. in High Point. "That money should have been divided among all of us."

IHFC, which owns an 11-story, 3.2 million-square-foot building, notified small shareholders of the buyout in November 1995. Explaining in a letter that "the time and expense of administering shareholders outweighs any benefit," it offered the small investors $2.8 million, about $100 a share. Twenty-three of the 40 sued, demanding more. The company settled in early '96, paying a higher but undisclosed price.

There may be no legal recourse this time. State law allows companies to force out minority shareholders and puts no restrictions on the timing of payouts, says Russell Robinson II, a Charlotte lawyer and expert on North Carolina business law. "It's entirely fair as long as there was no fraud or illegality."

Ex-shareholders can claim only a moral victory. "I'm delighted this is all coming to light," says retired furniture consultant Roy Briggs, who used to own shares passed down from his daddy, who invested when the company was capitalized in 1919. "It's interesting retribution."

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