La-Z-Boy furniture is sold in retail residential outlets in the United States and Canada and is manufactured and distributed under license in other countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Turkey, South Africa, Kuwait and Qatar.

In 1927, cousins Edward M. Knabusch and Edwin J. Shoemaker partnered and invested in the furniture business in the town of Monroe, Michigan.

"[2] Using orange crates to mock-up and refine their idea, they invented a wood-slat porch chair with a reclining mechanism.

[3] Richard R. Allen, Don A. Hunziker and William O. Fenn borrowed $70 million to buy Lea, American Drew and Daystrom from Sperry & Hutchinson in 1981.

[5] LADD was the third-largest American maker of furniture for homes, with over $600 million in sales, when it bought six Maytag businesses in 1990.

[5][9] Competition from China hurt many American furniture makers, and particularly La-Z-Boy's strategy of buying LADD to improve its casegoods position.

In 2005, La-Z-Boy chairman Pat Norton called the LADD deal "the biggest mistake that I have ever made in the furniture industry.

Later that month came the sale of Clayton Marcus to Sun Capital affiliate Lexington-Rowe, leaving only American Drew and Lea among the LADD divisions.

In September 2007 his son Graham Morgan announced that the company was to import the furniture from China and Thailand with the loss of around 200 Auckland manufacturing jobs.