Business news in brief: Optimus | Orchid | MacRoberts | CBI/PwC

The Aberdeen–based oil and gas engineering consultancy, Optimus, has more than doubled the size of its board with four appointments - Gordon Lamont, Alan Smith and Peter Stock become technical directors and Linda Strachan has been promoted to finance director.

• Orchid – One of Britain’s biggest pub companies has reportedly been put up for sale with a price tag of up to £300 million by Deutsche Bank after it took control of the group last year in a debt–for–equity swap.

• Life sciences, Knowledge & Enterprise (LIKE) conferences – Finance minister John Swinney and health minister Alex Neil have been confirmed as headline speakers at events hosted by law firm Harper Macleod in Inverness and Glasgow.

• McClure Naismith – The law firm has appointed former Semple Fraser partner Scott Kerr as the new head of its Edinburgh-based corporate team.

• MacRoberts – The Scottish law firm has been appointed to four regional lots of the new Legal Services Framework Agreement for the Higher and Further Education sectors managed by Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges (APUC), the purchasing centre of expertise for Scotland’s 60 universities and colleges.

• CBI/PwC – Financial services business volumes continued to grow strongly and optimism improved in the three months to June, according to the latest CBI/PwC financial services survey.