Turmoil continues as two more senior directors leave Balfour

Two senior Balfour Beatty directors, including strategic projects delivery director Vince Lydon, have been confirmed as the latest to leave the troubled construction giant.

A spokesperson for Balfour Beatty said Lydon, who joined the firm in 2012, had left the company.

Meanwhile Mike Peskin, formerly business development director for major projects, is also understood to be leaving Balfour Beatty, in order to join contractor Osborne.

The two senior departures have been confirmed in the week following the exit of Nick Pollard, who up until last week was the chief executive of the contractor’s UK construction arm.

Lydon joined Balfour Beatty after 15 years at contractor Lendlease, formerly known as Bovis, where he led major projects for BAA, Stanhope and the Crown Estate, and worked on delivery of the £1.1bn Olympic athletes’ village.

It is thought he was hired by Balfour initially as London major projects director in order to help it compete with the likes of Mace, Lendlease, Skanska and Laing O’Rourke for major high-rise schemes in the capital.

In 2013 he was made operations director for the south in Balfour’s regional business. He is understood to have left Balfour Beatty to join Sir Robert McAlpine, although a spokesperson for Sir Robert McAlpine refused to confirm if this was the case and what his role will be.

The departures are further evidence of management turmoil at Balfour Beatty, which has issued six profit warnings in the last three years, and saw its chief executive Andrew McNaughton, finance director Duncan McGrath and chairman Steve Marshall all step down last year. McNaughton himself had only been in post for 13 months, and Pollard lasted just two years as UK construction services chief executive.

New group chief executive Leo Quinn, who started at the business in January, has installed former De La Rue director Dean Banks to replace Pollard running the UK construction business.