Egan steps into Severn chair

SIR JOHN Egan, the industrialist who has just stood down as president of the CBI, has returned to a FTSE 100 company just months before his 65th birthday.

He is to be chairman of Severn Trent, the water and waste group that has lost both its chairman and chief executive in recent months.

Egan replaces David Arculus, who quit to become chairman of mobile phones group mmO2. It is Egan's second major company chairmanship as he also heads the board of international car distributor Inchcape.

A noted Eurosceptic - at a time when the CBI's official line on entry into the European currency has been neutral - Egan spent a decade as chief executive of airports group BAA and before that ran Jaguar Cars.

He will be working alongside Colin Matthews - formerly of Hays, Lattice and British Airways - who has just been appointed to succeed the retiring Robert Walker as chief executive.