Bookie William Hill covers its losses by poaching finance director from Bovis
Bookmaker William Hill stunned the City yesterday by announcing it is parting company with its finance director Simon Lane and poaching property firm Bovis Homes’ FD Neil Cooper for the job.
William Hill said that Lane is stepping down after deciding he wants to “seek a fresh challenge” following the group’s successful £350m discounted rights issue in February and a £300m corporate bond issue a few weeks ago.
Bovis Homes said Cooper will resign as its finance director and leave the company to enable him to take up the new position.
A recruitment process for the role will commence immediately and an announcement will be made once this process has been concluded, it added.
Cooper joined Bovis Homes in 2007 after an eight-year career with leisure group Whitbread.
Prior to that, he was a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers and qualified as management accountant at Reckitt & Colman (now Reckitt Benckiser).