Central recruits two non-execs

CENTRAL Insurance, the highly-acquisitive Aberdeen-based brokerage, yesterday appointed a pair of non-executive directors as the firm gears up for further expansion.

Managing director Iain Henry said that Gillian Hastings, a former corporate partner at accountancy firm Ernst & Young, and Graeme Manson, who founded Rutherford Manson Dowds and sold it to Deloitte, will “add weight and direction to the firm’s growth strategy”.

The firm has completed two acquisitions in the past 12 months with the £2.3 million takeover of Castle Cairn in Edinburgh and the £2.6m deal to buy Aberdeen-based Collins Halden & Burnett.

Central, which was founded in 1973, also opened a £1.2m office in Glasgow in 2010 and now employs more than 100 staff.