Wren Kitchens announced that it is closing all 15 of its US stores; however, the British firm has confirmed that this will not affect its UK stores.
Wren Kitchens is one of the UK's leading kitchen retailers and go to spot for new kitchen ideas. It opened its first US-based store in 2020 and went on to create 15 brick-and-mortar locations in America, alongside its in-store Wren Kitchen Studios in Home Depot. However, last week, workers were told that all US Wren stores would be closing immediately.
In a statement released today, Wren said: '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.'
Wren cited that the US business accounted for only 4% of the Group's overall turnover, and that it could reach the agreeable terms that would allow it to continue to grow.
What does that mean for the UK stores?
The fitted furniture retailer stressed that the US business is a separate legal entity from the UK, so it will remain unaffected by the decision.
'We reluctantly took the decision to appoint a Trustee who is managing our exit from the US market, in line with US regulations,' commented Mark Pullan, CEO of Wren. '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.,' The CEO reassured UK customers.
'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.
'While we remain mindful of potential uncertainties arising from the geopolitical situation, we are confident in the strength of our business and with all our focus on the UK, we will be accelerating our new store rollout programme over the year, with the launch of 15 new showrooms as well as new product categories.'
Wren launched in 2009 and currently has over 124 showrooms across the UK, and has expanded their range to offer fitted bedrooms and dressing rooms. Their kitchens are made in the UK, with the majority of the kitchen components manufactured in a factory in North Lincolnshire.
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