UP TO 50 jobs are hanging in the balance at Card Warehouse shops in the Bolton area after the owner of the discount greetings card chain went into administration.

Peterborough-based Greeting Card Group, which also operates Cardfair stores, called in administrators from Pricewaterhouse Coopers yesterday after it ran out of working capital because of loss-making stores.

The company has Card Warehouse stores in Bolton town centre; Brackley Street, Farnworth; The Parade, Swinton and Princess Parade, Bury.

Mike Jervis, a partner at Pricewaterhouse Coopers and administrator of GCG, said the business was historically profitable, but had been hit by the fall in the number of shoppers.

Profitable stores had suffered because loss-making ones had absorbed working capital and management time out of proportion to their value.

Mr Jervis added that the company was already in talks with potential buyers and that stores would remain open for the foreseeable future.

It is understood that almost a third of the company's 470 Card Warehouse and Cardfair stores are trading at a deficit.

The group employs more than 2,500 staff nationwide with a turnover of £70 million in the year to June 30, 2006. It was founded as Just Cards by Simon Lawson in 1992 with one store in Hertfordshire.

l Electrical retailer H Plumb and Son also went into administration yesterday, with the loss of 76 jobs.

The Wigan-based company, which specialises in the sale and rental of televisions and electrical goods.

Established more than 40 years ago, Plumbs has 10 stores in the North-west including Crompton Street, Bury.

Its store in Crompton Place, Bolton, closed last year.