The customer list and certain other intellectual property assets of Wetherby-based Moores Furniture Group have been sold to Wren Kitchens via a pre-pack administration process.
Founded in 1947 in West Yorkshire, Moores Furniture Group has grown to become one of the UK’s most experienced furniture manufacturers, supplying kitchens to housebuilders, as well as to the public sector and affordable housing developers since 1969. It went through a management buy out in September last year. It had been owned by private equity since 2017 before that.
According to the administrators, "in common with a number of other companies operating across the building and construction supply chain, and despite strong progress made in ongoing cost reduction and market share growth, the company had experienced challenging trading conditions in recent months, exacerbated by rising input costs and low levels of housebuilding activity. In response, the directors sought to explore the options available, including options for sale and investment. However, when no solvent outcomes were available, they took the difficult decision to file for the appointment of administrators."
Administrators were appointed to Moores Furniture Group earlier this week, who concluded a sale of the customer list and certain other intellectual property assets to Wren Trade Kitchens, a subsidiary of Wren Kitchens.
The administrators will continue to operate the company’s facility for a short period to work through certain work in progress. As a priority, the administrators are working with customers to try to reduce disruption in the supply chain, and as such, have retained around 336 members of staff to support with this process. They have however confirmed the redundancies of 124 employees.
James Clark, Managing Director at Interpath and joint Administrator, said: “The strong headwinds facing the UK construction industry continue to have an impact on companies up and down the supply chain.
“Against this backdrop, we are pleased to have been able to secure a transaction which 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.”
Wren has issued a statement in reaction to the collapse of the business and the agreement it has come to: "We were sorry to hear that Moores Furniture Group has entered into administration.
"While 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.
"Wren’s Contracts division had been in talks with Moores and the administrators but unfortunately was unable to save the business. We have however agreed an exclusive option to provide customers affected by this situation with the ability to seamlessly transfer outstanding contracts over to us. This will ensure those customers will be able to continue their operations with absolutely no impact on price, delivery schedules or administration costs.
"Due to the unique way Wren manufacture, we will also be able to assist customers by supplying cabinets and doors in the bespoke sizes which Moores had been supplying to the market, we envisage this will help housebuilders and public sector landlords with any warranty issues they or their customers may have been having or may need to resolve in the future.
"Wren’s Contract division had recently committed to a sales office in Harrogate, and we have agreed with the administrator that we will engage immediately with Moores management team to see if there are opportunities to provide alternative employment to a significant number of Moores sales, operations and internal support teams."
