Business briefs: Tenon job cuts to earn Muir £470k

DONALD Muir, the turnaround specialist who was involved in the sale of Rangers Football Club to Craig Whyte, is set to make £470,000 by cutting RSM Tenon’s workforce by a tenth.

Muir – who was dubbed by Rangers fans as the “enemy within” when its lenders, Lloyds Banking Group, put him on the board – will make £234,000 for working part-time for the next six months at Tenon, plus a similar bonus, documents have revealed.

The adviser was hired to help new Tenon chief executive Chris Merry implement a cost-cutting programme.

Builder sale will net Lloyds £150m

LLoyds Banking Group is expected to raise £150 million from the sale of its 50 per cent stake in one of the UK’s largest housebuilders.

Copthorn Holdings, the owner of Countryside Properties, said it had hired investment bank JP Morgan to seek “further capital” prior to a planned flotation in 2015 which would “restore Lloyds Bank to a more traditional lending role”.

HBOS, now part of Lloyds, took the stake in the builder in 2004 in a £187m deal to take it off the stockmarket. The Cherry family owns the other 50 per cent of the business.