Bauer turns in card

After 11 years, Willy Bauer is stepping down from his role as chief executive of the Wentworth Group, which runs the Wentworth golf course and country club in Surrey.

Bauer will continue to work for two days a week as a consultant for the company.

He is already a director of toiletries company Molton Brown, Wilton's restaurant in London's Jermyn Street, and the Walpole Committee, which promotes British excellence abroad.

Bauer has developed Wentworth into a well-known name on the golfing circuit. In 1997, he oversaw the purchase by Wentworth's parent company, Chelsfield, of the London and New York Westbury hotels from Granada for £120m. He developed the London hotel, adding shops on the ground floor, before Chelsfield sold it, for £68.5m, to Cola Holdings in 1999.

Bauer was general manager at the Savoy in London from 1982 to 1989. He also worked for Forte, running the Hyde Park and Grosvenor House hotels.

Also leaving the Wentworth group is marketing director Zdenka Beck-Bauer, who won a Catey in 1995 for the best independent marketing campaign for her work with the group.

Julian Small, Wentworth's managing director and general manager, will now report directly to Chelsfield.