In the six months to December 2018 Kier made an operating loss of £21m. Chief executive Haydn Mursell was sacked in January and Andrew Davies was named as his replacement last month. In the interim, chairman Philip Cox has been in day-to-day charge. He now returns to a non-executive role.
The first task facing Andrew Davies, after saying his hellos and checking in with HR, is to lead a strategic review to “consider ways of further simplifying Kier to create a more focused group". He will also look at "the allocation of capital resources across the group and additional steps to improve cash generation and reduce leverage”, the company said.
He will not be starting from scratch, however, as the board has already spent the past few months re-evaluating group strategy.
The conclusions of the review, which is in addition to the previously announced Future Proofing Kier programme, will be announced in July, the company said.
Andrew Davies, aged 55, was chief executive of Wates Group from 2014 until 2017. He left Wates in October 2017 when he was announced as the chief executive of Carillion but before he took up the role Carillion became insolvent in January 2018. Before leading Wates, Mr Davies spent more than 28 years with BAE Systems plc, latterly as managing director of the Maritime Division.
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