Ken Murphy, the president and CEO of the retailer Mattress Firm, is stepping down, the executive said in a statement released on Friday.

Murphy will leave the company in March. His resignation follows admissions of accounting irregularities from Mattress Firm's parent company, Steinhoff International, whose CEO resigned in December 2017.

Mattress Firm's executive chairman Steve Stagner will return as CEO, after having served the company in that capacity from 2010 to 2016.



Mattress Firm president and CEO Ken Murphy is stepping down, the company announced on Friday.

The retailer said the resignation was a joint decision between Murphy and the company's board of directors, and "reflects the need for a singular voice of leadership." Mattress Firm executive chairman Steve Stagner, who had served as CEO from 2010 to 2016, will return to that role, effective March 1.

Murphy's resignation follows admissions of accounting irregularities from Mattress Firm's parent company, Steinhoff International, whose CEO resigned in December 2017. Murphy oversaw Steinhoff's $3.8 billion acquisition of Mattress Firm in 2016.

More recently, Mattress Firm has been the subject of social-media rumors born out of questions about the retailer's seeming omnipresence in the US. Mattress Firm has 3,500 stores stateside, some of which are located in close proximity to each other.

A Reddit user speculated that the company was laundering money, which prompted a swift rebuke from Murphy, who called the assertion "absolutely false" in a statement to Business Insider. Through a spokesperson, the company reiterated that denial in a new statement on Monday, saying in part, "our CEO transition has nothing to do with money laundering jokes or serious news facing our parent company."