Murray & Roberts secures Clough control with new CEO

South African company Murray & Roberts Ltd has taken firm control of local engineering and construction group Clough Limited by replacing chief executive David Singleton with its own nominee.
Clough announced today that Mr Singleton has resigned effective immediately and deputy chairman John Cooper has been appointed chief executive officer.
Mr Cooper joined M&R in mid-2006 as its Australian chief executive and soon after was appointed a director and deputy chairman of Clough, which is 49 per cent owned by M&R.
He has been working from Clough's Perth head office and is already familiar with its operations.

Mr Cooper said he expected M&R would continue to acquire Clough shares until it gained a majority shareholding, in line with its announced strategy, and believed it was "highly unlikely" M&R would launch a full takeover offer.
The appointment of Mr Cooper followed several other major changes at Clough, which had been controlled by the Clough family but was effectively rescued by M&R in August 2004.
Jock Clough resigned as chairman at Clough's annual meeting last November and was replaced by Mike Harding, an independent non-executive chairman.
Another unrelated change was the recent announcement that Stephen Rogers, chief executive of Clough's oil and gas division, will be leaving to join Canadian underwater mineral exploration company Nautilus Minerals Inc.
Clough said Mr Cooper's terms of appointment will be subject to a further announcement.
Mr Harding said the Clough board appreciated the work done by Mr Singleton in developing and implementing the first stages of Clough's transformation strategy and wished Mr Singleton well in his future.
Mr Singleton has overseen a major restructuring of Clough's business, designed to reduce risk and achieve more consistent earnings.
However, the changes have been continually overshadowed by big losses on a handful of problem contracts, which have resulted in Clough incurring substantial losses in recent years.
Mr Cooper has more than 30 years engineering and construction experience in Australia and South-east Asia.
He was with Concrete Constructions Group for more than 20 years where he was General Manager Australia before leaving to become Managing Director of engineering consultant CMPS&F.