THE fate of 190 jobs at a loss-making factory in North Yorkshire was today hanging in the balance.

Administrative receivers at Licentia UK Ltd, in Sherbern-in-Elmet, are fighting to find a buyer for the firm, which makes ready-to-assemble flatpack furniture.

Potential buyers have already been shown around the plant, in Enterprise Way, Bishopdyke Road, by administrative receivers Grant Thornton.

Mike Saville, of Grant Thornton, said he was negotiating with Licentia's customers and suppliers to continue their support.

Their decision would "determine whether they keep the business going and hopefully we shall know that by the end of the week", he said.

Mr Saville added: "It would be very sad to lose yet more manufacturing jobs and it is all the more reason to work as hard as we can to sell it as a going concern."

As yet there have been no redundancies among the staff, 156 of whom are involved in production.

"The employees are very co-operative and being very sensible. They are putting their backs into production. They couldn't be more helpful," he said.

The firm, formerly known as Eurospace Ltd, made 50 workers redundant in March 2001, the result of losing money for three years. At that time its customers included Argos and Ikea, but it had been operating in the red since 1998 when it lost £5 million.

New automated technology was blamed by the former managing director, David Bullock, along with a big reduction in export sales due to a strong pound.

Mr Saville said: "It seems as if they were successful in replacing exports with UK sales but the historic losses were still there and they ran out of money."

He said there had now been interest from prospective purchasers and anyone else wanting to express an interest should contact him on 0113 2455514.

Updated: 11:31 Wednesday, April 02, 2003