Boardroom shuffle for Kingspan as Peter Wilson to retire

Irish building materials group Kingspan said the managing director of its insulation boards business, Peter Wilson, will retire at the end of the year.

Mr Wilson will also step down from his position on the board. Kingspan said the decision reflected Mr Wilson’s view that it was the right time to hand over to new leadership of the division.

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 boards business at an inquiry into a London tower block fire that killed 72 people.

Kingspan has appointed Alan Lawlor as the new divisional manager for the insulation boards division, with responsibility for its global activities. Mr Lawlor is chief financial officer of the insulation boards division and managing director of the southern Europe insulation business.

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The group has also appointed Jim Carolan as group head of compliance and certification, a newly created role that will report directly to the chief executive.

Flawed

An inquiry into the 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy in London heard that, some years previously, Kingspan relied on results from flawed safety tests to market its Kooltherm K15 insulation product, some of which was used on the building.

Internal communications show staff joked about the fact that fire safety results were flawed, prompting questions about Kingspan’s culture at the time.

Mr Murtagh told staff this week that further action would be required to ensure the historical shortcomings were not repeated.

K15 made up 5 per cent of the insulation used on Grenfell. The company discovered afterwards that it had been installed in the tower and said that it did not recommend its use there.

Kingspan has since said it has tested and re-tested K15 to ensure that it complies with standards regulating the fire performance of materials used for external cladding.

Mr Murtagh said the inquiry showed historical and unacceptable conduct and process shortcomings in part of its UK insulation boards business. Kingspan has apologised for this.