By Geoff Senescall
Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan's increasing influence at Brierley Investments has seen him muscle his way on to the board of British chain Thistle Hotels.
However, in doing so Brierley has relinquished the chair on the board of the asset in which it holds a 46 per cent stake.
Thistle
intends to seek an outside non-executive chairman to replace Rodney Price, who was one of Brierley's two members on the 12-person board.
Tan Sri Quek's appointment, along with that of Rupert Morley (Brierley's UK operations manager) on the Thistle board, are to replace Mr Price and Paul Collins, who have left the Brierley board.
The replacements were to be made in August last year at Thistle's board meeting.
But it is understood there were concerns about the Malaysian tycoon's candidacy.
At issue was whether Tan Sri Quek had a conflict of interest through his association with his cousin, Kwek Leng Beng, who runs Singapore's Hong Leong Group.
The Singapore group, through its subsidiary CDL, is a controlling shareholder in Millennium & Copthorne, a British listed hotel group which is a competitor to Thistle in the British market.
Millennium also made an early play for Thistle before the Japanese investment house, Nomura, became the preferred bidder, only to pull out at the last minute.
Hong Leong Singapore is widely thought to have cross shareholdings with Tan Sri Quek's Hong Leong Group in Malaysia, which controls a 20 per cent stake in Brierley.
Since Tan Sri Quek put himself forward as a candidate for the Thistle board he has increased his level of influence at Brierley.
At Brierley's annual meeting last November he used his voting power to oust three directors.
Earlier, he forced the former Brierley chairman, Sir Roger Douglas, to resign.
Tan Sri Quek controls two of the seven board seats. He has also given his support to the appointment of two other directors.
