Babcock chief to sort out BNFL

GORDON Campbell, chairman of defence services group Babcock International, will be appointed chairman this week of BNFL, the troubled state-owned nuclear energy business.

He succeeds Hugh Collum, who announced last year that he would step down this summer, and his appointment completes a change in the company's top two jobs in the past year.

Michael Parker replaced Norman Askew as chief executive last summer and he and Campbell will now implement the group's strategic plan. Campbell, who has been a non-executive director at BNFL since 2000, will bring substantial engineering experience to the role.

The Government shut the door on any full or part-privatisation of BNFL last year, though it had previously considered selling a 49% stake.

But BNFL's profitable American arm, Westinghouse, is to be run as a separate business and could attract outside investments or even be sold.

As part of its review of BNFL, the Government plans to set up the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to clean up nuclear installations at present managed by BNFL and the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

The move will help to reduce provisions for decommissioning liabilities in the accounts of BNFL, whose biggest customer is British Energy.