Moores Furniture Group, a Wetherby-based company that has been supplying kitchens to housebuilders, the public sector, and affordable housing developers since 1947, has fallen into administration, citing “challenging trading conditions” as the primary reason for its downfall.

The firm, which employed more than 450 people, has appointed James Clark and Will Wright from Interpath as joint administrators. The administrators confirmed that they had sold the company’s customer list and certain other intellectual property assets to Wren Trade Kitchens Limited, a subsidiary of Wren Kitchens Ltd.

While 336 staff members have been retained to support the completion of some work, the administrators have made the difficult decision to make 124 employees redundant. They have pledged to provide support to those affected, including assistance with making claims from the Redundancy Payments Service.

Construction industry headwinds impact supply chain

Clark explained that the strong headwinds facing the UK construction industry continue to have a significant impact on companies throughout the supply chain.

Despite Moores Furniture Group’s efforts to cut costs and make “strong progress,” the company struggled with “challenging trading conditions” due to rising costs and low levels of housebuilding activity.

The firm had explored options for further investment or the sale of the company, but these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, according to Clark.

However, he noted that the sale of intellectual property to Wren Kitchens “provides an opportunity to minimise disruption for customers and suppliers, and which will enable Moores’ heritage in kitchen manufacturing to continue as part of the Wren family.”

Glimmer of hope

Wren Kitchens Ltd expressed its regret that Moores had entered into administration, stating, “Whilst the company was a competitor of ours, we believe it is in everyone’s interests to have a strong kitchen industry based here in the UK.”

Although Wren Kitchens had been in talks with Moores, they were unable to save the business. However, they have agreed to an exclusive option to provide affected customers with the ability to seamlessly transfer outstanding contracts to Wren Kitchens.

Wren Kitchens also revealed that their contract division had recently announced plans for a sales office in Harrogate. They have agreed with the administrator to explore opportunities “to provide alternative employment to a significant number of Moores sales, operations and internal support teams,” offering a glimmer of hope for those affected by the administration.