Two Northern Ireland factories owned by British carpet maker Carpets International are to be put up for sale.
The plants are both in County Down. A carpet manufacturing plant in Donaghadee employs 289 people, and a spinning plant in Killinchy has 144 workers.
Carpets International was placed in receivership yesterday. The receiver, PricewaterhouseCoopers, said the factories would be advertised for sale collectively or individually and that there had been approaches from interested parties.
The receiver said no redundancies would be announced for now, but the staffing position would be reviewed again early next week.
