At last, M&C finds its new chief exec

Millennium & Copthorne, owner of more than 100 upmarket hotels, including Chelsea Village, has finally appointed a new chief executive after an eight-month search.

Richard Hartman, 62, will join the company next month, after almost a decade with Intercontinental Hotels where he was a director. Previously, he turned around the Sheraton chain in the US.

His predecessor, Peter Papadimitropoulos, quit M&C last summer after five months. The 39-year-old South African had little experience in the hotels industry, having worked in corporate finance and private equity. Sources close to the company had said: "It was like a marriage which did not work out, and the board acted quickly."

Since then Wong Hong Ren, an executive director with financial responsibilities, has been acting chief executive of the chain.

Hartman will be M&C's sixth chief executive since the group's flotation on the London Stock Exchange in 1996. The group denied suggestions that the post is difficult because of the relationship with, and influence of, the chairman and 53% shareholder Kwek Leng Beng.