Moores Furniture Group, one of Britain’s oldest kitchen manufacturers, has entered administration after 78 years of continuous trading, with the Wetherby based Business unable to survive a combination of customer losses, a slowdown in housebuilding and exhausted working capital.
The Moores Furniture Group administration was formally confirmed on 19 January 2026, when James Clark and Will Wright of Interpath Advisory were appointed as joint administrators. The company, which was founded in 1947 and had employed around 450 people across its manufacturing and head office operations in West Yorkshire, immediately made 124 staff redundant. A further 336 employees were retained temporarily to assist with completing outstanding customer orders.
The chain of events that led to the Moores Furniture Group collapse had begun in the months prior. Administrators noted that sales had suffered significantly after one of the company’s major customers entered insolvency, and a separate pause in orders from a large public sector client added further pressure. Those two events combined to create a funding gap of approximately 2 million pounds going into 2026, leaving the company’s creditor position increasingly strained. With previous owner Hilco having stepped back from providing financial support in September 2025, the directors had no meaningful runway left. Interpath was engaged in October 2025 to explore a sale, refinancing or investment, but none of those routes proved viable.
The scale of the financial hole revealed by the Moores Furniture Group administration was significant. Lender Hilco was owed approximately 29.6 million pounds, with total unsecured creditor claims of 24.8 million pounds including 5.8 million pounds to trade creditors, 6.4 million pounds to employees and 13 million pounds to the company’s defined benefit pension scheme. HMRC was owed 2.4 million pounds. Assets valued at 5.7 million pounds were expected to cover preferential claims, but the lender faced the prospect of a substantial shortfall.
One element of the administration offered some relief for affected customers. Wren Kitchens acquired the Moores customer database and certain intellectual property assets, allowing existing orders to be transferred to the rival company without disruption. Wren said it hoped the deal would create new job opportunities for some of the affected Moores workforce, and the administrators confirmed that discussions were underway about absorbing a portion of the sales, operations and support staff.
Joint administrator James Clark pointed to the wider structural challenges in the sector, noting that the strong headwinds facing the UK construction industry were being felt across the entire supply chain. Moores had positioned itself as a supplier to major housebuilders, meaning that a prolonged slowdown in new build activity directly reduced its order volumes. The Moores Furniture Group administration stands as a reminder of how exposed manufacturing businesses can be when their markets contract suddenly and investor support is withdrawn at the same moment.