NETWORK RAIL ANNOUNCES NEW FINANCE DIRECTOR

Thursday 29 Jan 2009

NETWORK RAIL ANNOUNCES NEW FINANCE DIRECTOR

Region & Route:: National

Network Rail today announced the appointment of its new group finance director, Patrick Butcher. He will take over on 20th April from Ron Henderson who recently announced his retirement.

Between 2004 and 2008 Patrick was finance director (FD) at English Welsh and Scottish Railway (now DB Schenker), the UK's largest rail freight operator where he led the refinancing of the business and was an integral part of the team that oversaw the successful transition of the ownership of EWS to DB Schenker.

Before this he spent two years as FD at Mapeley Ltd, a major property and facilities management company and two years with London Underground as finance director, where he was involved in preparing the company for the introduction of the public private partnership (PPP).

He has also held senior finance roles with King's College Hospital and at the North West Regional Health Authority and spent a number of years at Deloitte and Touche as a management consultant.

Announcing the news, chief executive, Iain Coucher, said: “Patrick is a respected and highly experienced individual whose expertise will help guide and advise the executive team as it looks to deliver challenging targets in both efficiency and performance in the years ahead."

Mr Butcher, 41, is married with two children.

Notes to editors

• In line with normal practice, his appointment will be formally put before Members at the AGM in July. • Mr Butcher's appointment follows the approaching retirement of Ron Henderson's (existing group FD) • Mr Henderson has been with the company since October 2002 and has led a very successful finance and funding team that played a pivotal role in taking Railtrack out of administration and securing the funds to reverse decades of underinvestment in Britain's rail system. He will stay with the company for the next few months to ensure a smooth hand-over to his replacement

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We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

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