WELLINGTON bedding firm Relyon, which employs nearly 500 people, is up for sale.

The news comes less than three months after its sister company Pritex, which has a 240-strong workforce, was sold to Saint Gobain, an international company which employs 180,000 people in 67 countries.

Relyon, which has 450-plus workers in Wellington and 35-plus in Taunton, released a brief statement to the WWN on Monday.

It said: “Regarding the proposed sale of the business, unfortunately we are not in a position to make any formal statement or announcement at this time.

“If this changes, we will of course contact you again once we have updated all employees.”

Workers at Relyon were informed of the proposed sale on Friday. One worker told the WWN: “We were assured the company was profitable.”

The decision to sell Pritex was made with the objective of finding the company ‘the best new strategic partner that would fulfil its potential and support the next level of success and growth’.

Since then 20 employees of Pritex have been ‘placed at risk of redundancy’.

During this bout of selling and buying, beauty and cosmetics firm Swallowfield, based alongside Relyon, has sold its manufacturing division for £35 million.

It has been bought by international company Knowlton Development Corporation (KDC/ONE) which employs 5,000 people globally.

Hundreds of workers locally are affected by uncertainty as new owners move in to run the companies.

Relyon and Pritex were caught up in an accounting scandal at South African parent company Steinhoff International at the end of 2017. It is this which has resulted in both companies being sold.