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Irish building materials group Kingspan said the managing director of its insulating panel business, Peter Wilson, will retire at the end of the year.
Mr. Wilson will also leave his position on the board. Kingspan said the decision reflected Wilson’s view that the time was right to hand over to the division’s new leadership.
The news comes after Gene Murtagh, Kingspan chief executive, warned staff this week that rebuilding trust in the group would take time following damaging revelations about its UK insulation board business in an investigation into a fire at a block of flats in London that killed 72 people.
Kingspan has appointed Alan Lawlor as the new divisional manager of the insulation board division, with responsibility for its global activities. Mr. Lawlor is CFO of the Insulation Panel Division and Managing Director of the Southern European Insulation Business.
The group also appointed Jim Carolan as head of the compliance and certification group, a newly created role that will report directly to the CEO.
Defective
An investigation into the 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy in London heard that, some years earlier, Kingspan relied on the results of faulty safety tests to market its Kooltherm K15 insulation product, part of which was used in the building.
Internal communications program staff joked that the fire safety results were flawed, prompting questions about Kingspan’s culture at the time.
Murtagh told staff this week that further action would be required to ensure that historical shortcomings are not repeated.
K15 accounted for 5 percent of the insulation used at Grenfell. The company later discovered that it had been installed in the tower and said it did not recommend its use there.
Kingspan has since said that it has tested and retested K15 to make sure it meets the standards governing the fire performance of materials used for external cladding.
Murtagh said the investigation revealed unacceptable and historical deficiencies in conduct and process in part of its UK insulation board business. Kingspan has apologized for this.
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