Nearly 240 jobs in Kidderminster could be under threat after a furniture manufacturer called in the receivers.
The Christie Tyler group, owner of Early Bird Furniture and Wyvern Furniture in Kidderminster, will be put up for sale today by receivers Ernst & Young.
The impact of the group?s liquidation on the region could have doubled if Ultra Furniture had not undergone a management buyout last Friday.
The Kingswinford-based firm employs 233 people at its site on the Pensnett Trading Estate.
Christie Tyler employs about 2,000 people in Kidderminster, Scunthorpe, Holywell in north Wales, and Blackwood in South Wales, with its headquarters in Bridgend, South Wales.
A spokeswoman for Ernst & Young said the firm had struggled in the face of increasing international competition and, more recently, weaker domestic retail trading.
?Shareholders and lenders had considered various options with management and concluded that a restructuring through an insolvency process provided the best opportunity to secure a viable trading business, with improved prospects for the employees of various group companies,? she said.
A spokeswoman from Christie Tyler said staff at the Kidderminster factories had been informed of the sale. ?At the moment it is business as usual and it is too early to predict what the outcome of the sale will be,? she said.
The group, which manufactures three-piece suites, has already shed hundreds of jobs in the past couple of years.
GMB organiser Alun Rappell said: ?We thought we had got ourselves match fit.
?It has come as a total shock. These are very highly skilled, reasonably paid jobs, something we can ill afford to lose.
