AN engineering company which traded for more than 120 years in Bury before moving out of town has lost its fight for survival after going into administration.

Management at Sandusky Walmsley have told staff at its headquarters at Crompton Way in Astley Bridge, Bolton, that no buyer has come forward during the past two months and the factory will shut "within two or three weeks".

The closure will spell the end for one of the region's oldest paper machinery manufacturers which, for many years, traded under the Walmsley banner at its Atlas Works in Bury.

When Sandusky Walmsley went into administration in August, following losses and a lack of orders due to tough economic conditions, 158 staff lost their jobs.

Last Friday, administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP announced a further 142 redundancies and said the remaining 25 employees would go upon completion of the current work in progress.

Since the appointment of the administrators, the business has been marketed but no satisfactory offer for the business as a going concern was received. PricewaterhouseCoopers now say they have no alternative but to announce that trading will cease and the business closed.Joint administrator Michael Horrocks said: "It is a sad day when the closure of any business is announced. It is particularly sad when it involves the loss of so many jobs.

"Unfortunately, despite a period in which the business has been actively marketed, we have not received a satisfactory offer to enable the business to be sold as a going concern. We will now be looking to achieve a sale of the assets."

Originally formed in Bury in 1860, Walmsley's employed more than 1,000 staff in its heyday. The company at one time was the UK's largest papermaking machinery manufacturers and won Queen's awards for exports on the basis that 80 per cent of its production was destined for overseas.

At the end of the 1960s, Walmsleys merged with the Beloit Corporation of Wisconsin, USA. Later, it was taken over completely and renamed Beloit Walmsley.

In the mid-1970s, the company established factories in Bolton and Wigan. Manufacturing finally ceased in Bury in 1984. When Beloit's owners, Harnischfeger Industries, ran into trouble in 2000, the factory went into receivership before being acquired by Sandusky International, based in Sandusky, Ohio.