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High street chain Wren Kitchens and Bedrooms could offer jobs to a "significant number" of workers at a furniture company that has fallen into administration. Moores Furniture Group, which employed more than 450 people, appointed joint administrators James Clark and Will Wright of Interpath, before immediately concluding a sale to Wren Trade Kitchens Limited, a subsidiary of Wren Kitchens.

While 336 staff have been retained to help complete ongoing work and to reduce any disruption to customers, administrators confirmed that approximately 124 employees were made redundant. Those affected are being advised on how to make claims through the Redundancy Payments Service.

A Wren Contract Kitchens statement said it has agreed to engage "immediately" with the Moores management team to explore "opportunities to provide alternative employment to a significant number of Moores sales, operations and internal support teams".

Wren is one of the largest kitchen manufacturers in Europe, and delivers more than 3,000 kitchens and bedrooms every week to homes across the UK.

It explained: "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.

"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."

Administrators confirmed that Moores struggled with "challenging trading conditions" due to rising costs and low levels of housebuilding activity, despite efforts to cut costs.

They said Moores' customer list and certain intellectual property assets were sold to Wren Trade Kitchens Limited.

Moores was founded in 1947 when George Moore used £45 to start a joinery business, G A Moore Joinery, out of a secondhand hen hut in Bingley, West Yorkshire.

The company grew to employ 450 people and supply kitchens to housebuilders, the public sector, and affordable housing developers.