NEWSBRIEF

New Jarvis company appoints MD

Jarvis has appointed Alan Beeson as managing director to head up its newly formed facilities management consultancy. Prior to joining Altrincham-based Jarvis Facilities Management Consultancy, Beeston worked as a divisional managing director of BET, head of facilities at Asda and FM director at consulting engineer Oscar Faber.

New deputy MD for Kvaerner subsidiary

Robin Wood, northern divisional director of piling specialist Kvaerner Cementation Foundations, has been promoted to deputy managing director of KCF. Wood will continue as operations director of the Scottish and Northern areas while taking on responsibility for commercial, estimating and personnel matters throughout KCF. He will report to managing director Mike Putnam.

Sisk announces new regional manager

John Sisk & Son has appointed John Hodson as its regional manager in the North-west. Before joining Sisk, Hodson had served a three-year term as regional director with Sunley Turriff Construction and the preceding 10 years with Norwest Holst, rising to area manager. He takes on a workload which includes a £14 million project for an automated sorting centre for Royal Mail.

US and UK claims consultants IN alliance

James R Knowles has formed a strategic alliance with fellow contract and claims consultant Pinnacle One of North America. The venture will give the two companies a network of 45 offices in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Far East, Canada and the USA. Pinnacle One has 14 offices in North America. Collectively the alliance has a total staff complement of around 600 and a total fee income of £35 million. The move follows JRK's flotation on the Alternative Investment Market in June when the company said that worldwide expansion formed part of its strategy. JRK's finance director Patrick Lineen said there was "a possibility" that the alliance could turn into a full-scale merger in the future.

TGWU names HODGEAS London leader

Bill Hodge has been appointed by the TGWU as the union's principal official covering construction in London and the South East. He takes over from Bob Blackman who has succeeded George Henderson as the TGWU national secretary for construction. Hodge is an experienced trade group secretary and was previously responsible for the chemical, oil, and rubber industries. Prior to becoming a full-time union official, he worked in construction as a pipelayer and in power supply.

Euro currency preparations made

Fit-out and refurbishment specialist Overbury is going to offer clients the option of trading in Euros from the beginning of 1999. Overbury says that its overseas clients which include ABN-Amro, Credit Lyonnais, Air France and ING Barings welcomed the news as it will give them greater flexibility. A recent survey showed that two-thirds of UK companies want to adopt the single currency - the same proportion also reported that their firms had taken no action to prepare for the Euro.

profits and sales outlook 'poor'

A new survey claims that the outlook for sales and profits among building material companies is poor. Researchers from Winkler International say that customers are exerting more pressure on manufacturers and this is also being accompanied by manufacturers giving away unnecessary discounts and offering low prices. The survey canvassed the opinion of 1,500 directors and most reported that the pressure on profit margins will intensify in the next six months.