The boss of troubled M&E contractor Emcor has left the business as part of a shake-up of the senior management team, in the wake of a £6.1m loss posted by the company this summer, writes Stuart Macdonald.

Tony Whale has been replaced by finance director Keith Chanter, who will do both jobs after Whale leaves at the end of the month.

Greig Brown, managing director of Emcor Facilities Services, has also left to take up a new job as chief executive of facilities management specialist Europa.

Brown has been replaced by Nick Morris, who will take on the role in addition to his current job as group development director. Brown’s departure is not understood to be linked to the disappointing results in the year to December 2007, caused by a £12.3m loss in Emcor’s rail division. The company decided not to bid for further work in the sector as a result.

The 3,000 UK staff of the US-owned business were informed of the changes in a series of emails during the past week.

One employee said: “We received a memo this week telling us that a new senior management team was now in place and it is all systems go.”

We received a memo telling us that a new senior management team was now in place

An Emcor employee

Whale had been with Emcor since 2003 when he joined from engineering consultant Parkman Group, where he had been chief executive since 1995.

A spokesperson for Emcor said: “Tony has taken the company through difficult times. Five years ago Emcor was in a much worse position than it is now. He is moving on to pursue new interests.”

Emcor is known for its work on the Jubilee line extension and a 2003 dispute with Mowlem over work on a Ministry of Defence building in Bristol.

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