Ashtead hires former Sage CEO Paul Walker as chairman

Equipment rental company Ashtead has appointed Paul Walker as a non-executive director and chairman designate, succeeding Chris Cole.

The company had already announced that Cole, who has been chairman since 2007, will retire at the annual general meeting on 11 September, which is when Walker will assume the role.

Walker is currently non-executive chairman of Halma and a non-executive director of Experian and Sophos. He was chief executive of Sage Group between 1994 and 2010 and has previously served on the boards of Diageo and Mytravel.

Chief executive Geoff Drabble said: "I would like to welcome Paul to the Ashtead board and look forward to working with him on the ongoing delivery of our successful strategy to grow the group through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions.

"I would like to thank Chris for his significant contribution to the development of the board, the group and me personally. Chris has provided both strong leadership and wise counsel over a number of years. The success of the Ashtead Group is well chronicled but the foundation of this success was undoubtedly the calm and steadying influence Chris demonstrated in the very difficult 2008/9 recession. We wish Chris well in whatever are the next chapters in his highly successful career."

At 1050 BST, the shares were up 0.7% to 2,229p.