International consultant WSP has poached two directors from Currie & Brown to head a PPP and project finance division.

Steve Prior, a PFI director at Currie & Brown, will lead the business, which will operate within WSP’s management consultancy division. Prior will be appointed as a WSP director, while Gary McCarthy, a Currie & Brown divisional director, will work alongside Prior as technical director.

The business, with which WSP aims to increase its PPP consultancy offering, will offer due diligence services to funders and bankers and advice to public sector clients. It will also support WSP’s existing PFI work in the education and health sectors.

The moves are the latest in a series of high-profile departures from Currie & Brown, which announced a restructure earlier this year. Six directors left the company in 2005, allegedly over “cultural differences”. Angus McLean, the former chairman, left last May.

Meanwhile, Currie & Brown this week opened an office in Manchester, its 17th in the UK, and made four senior appointments in the latest phase of its restructuring.

We have a large core team of 30. It is inevitable that people come and go

Currie & brown spokesperson

Iain Plover, formerly human resources director of Anglian Water Services and then an independent consultant, will join as UK head of human resources. Jim Crossman, a PFI and PPP specialist, has been promoted to director in the City of London office, and Simon Lee, who is a director, will manage the office in Crawley, West Sussex.

Richard Street, formerly of Stephen Davies Associates, has been appointed divisional director of building surveying in Manchester.

A Currie & Brown spokesperson said: “Currie and Brown is the UK’s strongest player in the PFI/PPP sector and we have a large core team of 30. It’s inevitable that people come and go.”

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