Durrant’s hot property at Liberty

Finance director Ian Durrant will move to the chairman’s seat if a demerger at commercial property empire Liberty International goes through.
Durrant, also a non-executive at pub owners Greene King, takes the promotion at Capital & Counties following the company’s announcement to demerge into two separate businesses.

The £6.1bn property business, which owns the Olympia and Lakeside Shopping Centre, has separated into Capital Shopping Centres and Capital & Countries.

The hunt is on to replace Durrant who took up the role in 2008. He was previously CFO of SeaContainers and FD of Thistle Hotels.

Brendon Nelson leaves KPMG at the end of the month but won’t be gardening for too long as he starts on the board of Royal Bank of Scotland
days later. Nelson, currently global chairman of KPMG’s financial services and vice chairman of KPMG UK, takes up the non-executive role at RBS in early April. Nelson succeeds Archie Hunt as chair of the audit committee for the bailed-out bank.

Alex Steele takes the reins as FD at environmental and engin­eering consultants Wat­er­­man. Steele trained with PricewaterhouseCoopers and spent three years in the Sydney office before returning to London to focus on mid tier companies. She took up residency at Waterman two years ago as group divisional director of finance. She succeeds Graham Hiscocks who stays on as company secretary and will focus on corporate governance.

KPMG has bolstered its financial management advisory division by recruiting two partners and a director. Jacky Ross becomes partner having previously worked at PwC and Ernst & Yong; Sheila Pringle takes on the associate partner role joining from Deloitte where she spent six years in financial management. Joy Voyle, who has previously worked at Ernst & Young and Cap Gemini, becomes director.