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Faithful + Gould, the quantity surveying arm of Atkins, has poached two directors from rivals Cyril Sweett and Gardiner & Theobald.

Christopher Hill joined F+G last week from Cyril Sweett, where he was associate director. He will be based at the company's London office heading its contract consultancy group.

Keith Owen took charge of F+G's risk and value management group this week. He was formerly a partner at G&T.

The directors arrived as Richard Hall, managing director of F+G, announced that he would be relocating in September to head the cost consultant's business in the USA and Canada.

A spokesperson for F+G said: "Richard will continue to drive the performance and growth of the F+G business, while providing hands-on support to the business development efforts in North America."

The spokesperson said the relocation was Hall's personal choice, and not the result of any problems with the US business.

Donald Lawson, a F+G director based in Edinburgh, will head the firm's day-to-day operations in the UK.

The restructuring came in the same week as parent company Atkins announced a 41% rise in pre-tax profit to 拢74.8m for the year to 31 March 2006.

Overall profit rose despite a 61% drop in returns from Metronet, the Tube consortium in which Atkins is a member. This fell from to 拢4.6m from 拢11.9m.

Keith Clarke, chief executive of Atkins, said: "Metronet continues to present challenges and this has impacted on the group's overall profitability."

He added that the operational performance of the nine lines for which Metronet was responsible remained "inconsistent and behind Metronet's original expectations", but said that it was improving.

The stations renewal programme is also behind schedule. Only 13 stations were completed by the end of March, well down on the 36 that were planned.

Atkins' turnover rose 10% to 拢1.41bn.