A NEW designer clothing company being created in Bolton is to save 109 jobs in Ellesmere Port.

Denude Apparel, which is based in offices in Darwen Road, is to take over the closure-threatened Umbro factory, which makes replica shirts for top clubs including Manchester United and Everton.

Denude chairman Sandy Morland, 36, said today: "We are buying the factory and taking the staff on."

He said Umbro were supporting the deal with a continuation order.

Mr Morland, who is from Radcliffe, has run car trade businesses in the past and has been a salesman at Gordons Honda in Bolton.

As reported in the Bolton Evening News in January, Denude Apparel has ambitious plans for a new factory on 12 acres of the old Speke airport site in Liverpool. It hopes to recruit up to 500 employees.

The factory, which is due to open next January, is scheduled to supply own label, high quality clothes to a proposed chain of 26 shops.

Mr Morland said 11 shops had been provisionally set-up and sites were being negotiated elsewhere, including one in Bolton.

He said the multi-million pound operation was being supported by "one of the main clearing banks," adding: "I have been putting all this together for five years."

So far nine people were involved, including group property director David Fairclough and deputy chairman John Sellors.

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