Wren Kitchens has given an update on its UK stores after ceasing operations in the US. The company, Britain’s number one retailer of fitted kitchens, abruptly shut 15 stores in the US last week, with all staff losing their jobs without warning.

It has now been confirmed that the decision to withdraw from the US market was made to “focus investment” on accelerating the firm’s development in the UK, including new showrooms and product categories. Mark Pullan, CEO of Wren Kitchens, said the stores were shut “reluctantly” but he is now intent on growing the business in Britain following a period of encouraging market growth. He also thanked colleagues and customers in the US for their support.

Mr Pullan said: “We reluctantly took the decision to appoint a Trustee who is managing our exit from the US market, in line with US regulations. We regret the impact of this decision on our US colleagues and our customers and thank both of them for their support.

“Our focus is on further growing our UK business where last year we recorded our second most successful year since the business began and hit the £1bn turnover mark with strong profits despite what remains a subdued market.”

He added: “Encouragingly, this market growth has carried through into the first quarter. These results reflect the hard work and dedication of our teams across the business and our sustained re-investment in the business – over £500m over the past 15 years.

“We are beginning to see the early benefits of the investment in our new factory, which is enhancing both capacity and efficiency, while continued investment across our UK operations is helping to improve resilience, support fuel cost stability and reduce our environmental impact.”

The Wren Kitchens boss is now hopeful of opening 15 new showrooms across the UK in the near future. The company is also planning on introducing new product categories.

It comes after the US branch filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation, a legal process in the US that allows businesses to eliminate debts by selling assets to repay creditors, on Friday, April 24. Staff were informed on a Zoom call the day before that all stores and showrooms would be closing with immediate effect.

Wren Kitchens added in a statement: “After careful consideration, we made the difficult decision to withdraw from the US market and focus investment on accelerating our core UK business, which is experiencing double-digit growth.

“The US business, a separate legal entity from the UK, which is unaffected by this decision, was growing from a small base – accounting for around 4% of our Group’s overall turnover. Its future success, however, relied on expanding our US retail estate. Despite our best efforts sadly we could not reach agreeable terms that would enable us to do that.”

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.