Beazer Homes Appoints
A New Finance Chief

Allan P. Merrill was named chief financial officer of Beazer Homes USA Inc., one of the nation's largest home builders.

Mr. Merrill comes to the Atlanta company from Move Inc., which runs real-estate-related Web sites and where he has served as executive vice president of corporate development and strategy since 2001.

Mr. Merrill, 40 years old, joined Move after 13 years with UBS Investment Bank, a unit of UBS AG, and its predecessor, Dillon, Read & Co., where he served as co-head of the Global Resources Group and oversaw the construction and building-materials, chemicals, forest-products, mining and energy industry groups.

At Beazer, Mr. Merrill succeeds former finance chief James O'Leary, who left the company last month to become chief executive of Kaydon Corp., a designer and manufacturer of engineered products for the aerospace, energy and medical industries.

Mr. Merrill joins Beazer amid a weak housing market and an investigation of the company's mortgage-lending practices by federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In an interview, Mr. Merrill declined to comment on the probe but said, "I look forward to keeping the strong financial controls that the company has had in place." He added, "I am a bull on the housing market. Clearly, there are challenges in the near term. But I am confident we will manage through the near-term difficulties."

Mr. O'Leary has said his decision to leave Beazer wasn't related to the federal probe.

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