Former finance boss takes Bovis to tribunal over bonus

Andrew Silverbeck, the former global chief financial officer of Bovis Lend Lease, is taking the contractor to an employment tribunal next month over a bonus payment.

The dispute, which has been filed at the central London tribunal office, is understood to centre on unpaid bonuses between 2003 and 2006, when Silverbeck helped to lead negotiations on the £270m purchase of Crosby Homes from the Berkeley Group. The hearing has been set for 11 June.

The level of bonuses being claimed is not known, although Silverbeck is thought to have earned in the region of £150,000.

Silverbeck resigned from Bovis last July, a month after Jason Millet, the former UK chief executive, left.

It is the latest blow to Bovis, after its global chief executive Bob Johnston resigned two weeks ago after less that two years in the job and a £48m writedown in the UK was announced in March.

When Building broke the news of Silverbeck’s resignation last July a Bovis spokesman insisted that it was simply a “career move”. A source close to the company said he thought that Silverbeck was struggling to work with Johnston.

The row has raged since at least November last year, a month after Silverbeck left Bovis to join consultancy Environmental Resources Management as finance director.

A source close to the dispute said Bovis had not made Silverbeck an offer to avoid the tribunal and that both parties looked likely to “pursue the process all the way”.

A spokesperson for Bovis declined to confirm the reports.

Silverbeck joined Lend Lease in 1999 after he was poached from P&O. He was given the global Bovis job in 2005 when Lend Lease changed its structure.

Johnston will be replaced by Mark Menhinnitt, who was previously president of Actus Lend Lease, the group’s military housing business in the US.

Menhinnitt is unknown in the UK but an industry source who has met him says: “He is obviously very bright.”