RMJM's finance director quits as staff exodus hits top brass
RMJM finance director John Douglas
John Douglas joined by two other senior figures
The crisis gripping RMJM is intensifying with departures at the firm now affecting its top management, including group financial director John Douglas.
BD can also reveal that another head-office director, commercial director Eric Allan, has gone while a third senior figure, Colin Bone, the managing principal of its European studio who has been with the business since 2007, is also understood to have resigned.
One source told BD that Douglas, who was previously finance director at drinks firm Whyte & Mackay, quit in apparent protest “at not being allowed to do his job anymore”. The source said the recent payment of missing staff salaries had been co-ordinated by chief executive Peter Morrison’s brother-in-law Richard Bailes, the firm’s commercial director in the US.
“This was a job that John used to do,” the source said. “He is no longer copied in on any of the emails on financial issues. He feels it’s no longer possible for him to operate properly anymore.”
The dramatic news caps a disastrous few months at the business for Morrison who has watched a steady stream of senior staff leave, fed up with the late payment of salaries and other benefits. Clients have also begun pulling jobs after being spooked by the financial problems affecting the firm while staff in Hong Kong are taking the firm to a tribunal to recoup £100,000 in alleged unpaid wages.
At one stage, staff across the group were owed three months’ salary and only 10 days ago received their first payments of 2012. This included March wages being paid in full – though just 60% of their January and February salaries.
Any hopes that those payments might have eased the pressure on the embattled Morrison and his right-hand man, group commercial director Declan Thompson, have disappeared with the departures. This has been exacerbated by the resignation of design director Nick Cordingley, who RMJM moved to its Hong Kong office only in last autumn to try and stabilise operations there.
Cordingley’s brief was to win more work for RMJM’s office in Hong Kong, but last Friday he began his first day at work for 10 Design – the business set up by five ex-RMJM designers in December 2010.
Cordingley, who spent around a decade at RMJM, is now heading 10 Design’s Shanghai studio. His departure is thought to be linked to the firm’s problems paying staff their salaries. A source said: “Hong Kong is quite an expensive place to live. To go out there and live without a salary is not a sustainable situation.”
Gordon Affleck, design partner at 10 Design, said: “We know we are very lucky to have to have secured Nick. He brings with him a depth of design experience both from the UK and internationally.”
RMJM declined to comment.
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Readers' comments (30)
one gets an impression of chaotic mismanagement and lots of ruined careers.
How a small practitioner who neglects to explain the terms of his appointment in full can be fined or struck off yet the halfwit incompetents at rmjm don't even get reviewed by arb is beyond belief. Rmjm staff are just as much members of the public who need defending from rogues as the residential client. Come on arb, sort yourselves out.
Mark, check out what ARB is actually responsible for and then check how many of RMJM's group directors are registered with ARB. The shambolic situation at RMJM is simply not within their jurisdiction.
This is a real shame for the staff at RMJM in Edinburgh and Europe. Colin and Eric are highly thought of by all the staff and clients and have spent years building the business only to see it being brought to it knees by the shear idiotic management at the top of the company.
How long can RMJM last? Late payment of wages, mass exodus of staff, clients running a mile. Is it months, weeks or days?
When will this RMJM circus end ?!? Unfortunately there is no law against idiocy.
This is like watching a train crash in slow motion.
I DON'T CARE ANYMORE.
Love the comment 'to go out there (Hong Kong) and live without a salary is not a sustainable situation' priceless. Granted it is an expensive place to live, but if there are places where it is sustainable to live without a wage can you please share?
It may be dragging on a bit, but could we have an overview of what is happening? Are we weeks away from liquidation, or could the saga go on for years and years? Where are staff being paid and where not? And roughly how many (i) paid and (ii) unpaid staff are left at RMJM?
Dear BD readers and commenters,
Please don't believe the hype.
The real story here is a significant government client defaulted on their very large debt, and chaos followed. Several years later, they are paying some of it back so normality can possibly return.
BD won't report on the real story as it doesn't fit their agenda. Stirring up a soap opera of misrepresentation generates more precious clicks than the real story, which is far more serious and relevant to the profession and our times.
There is also now a not so hidden agenda against large commercial firms run by non-architects. Whatever the ideological reasoning for this, writing incendiary one-sided articles damages and puts at risk a business which employs hundreds of architects and repatriates millions to the UK economy from abroad. Given the current economic situation,is this wise or even ethical ?
The ASL story is essentially the same but is reported with more sensitivity. When RMJM senior staff are appointed it is not reported, but it is when they leave. When contracts are won it is not reported. When contracts are lost it is. When other architects lose contracts it is not reported. When someone is forced out, it is reported as if they quit. Also, there has been no effort to represent the full situation or how it arose.
Before the financial crisis, RMJM was one of the most employee friendly practices with good salaries, reasonable hours and generous charity partnerships. It will be a travesty if scurrilous reporting leads to this not being regained. Ironically, as long as you keep reading, commenting and clicking these articles, this flamed up saga will keep filling your pages.