GRAEME Dunlop, chairman and managing director of P&O Ferries, is to retire at the end of the year and will become a special adviser to chairman Lord Sterling and the board.

Mr Dunlop, who turns 60 this month, has been a P&O main board director since 1991. He is to become president of the European Community Shipowners' Association next year.

Russ Peters, who has been managing director of P&O Stena Line since its inception in 1998, is to become responsible for the whole of P&O Ferries. Before he takes over he will take charge of the consolidation and rationalisation of P&O's ferry operations following its anticipated acquisition of Stena Line's 40 per cent holding in P&O Stena Line and the proposed restructuring of the North Sea routes.

Mr Dunlop joined P&O as a management trainee in 1964 after graduating from Cambridge University. His early career was spent in a wide range of posts in cargo and passenger shipping. In 1979 he was appointed managing director of North Sea Ferries. He became managing director of P&O European Ferries in 1987 and chairman in 1993.

Russ Peters became managing director of P&O North Sea Ferries in 1990 and managing director of P&O European Ferries (Dover) in 1994. He has been managing director of P&O Stena Line since March 1998.