Bath Rugby have appointed a trio of the financial world's biggest hitters as directors.

Lord MacLaurin, a former chairman of Tesco and Vodafone who lives next door to Bath's new headquarters in Farleigh Hungerford, is perhaps the best known of the three, having previously been in charge of the England and Wales Cricket Board.

He is joined as a non-executive director by Nick Varney, whose company Merlin Entertainments is the second largest entertainment business in the world, and experienced banker Chris Coles.

Varney's business is second only to Walt Disney in the entertainment sector and runs such iconic attractions as Legoland, Madame Tussauds, The London Eye and Alton Towers. Coles, meanwhile, is a former managing director at Barclays Capital and is now a partner at private equity firm Actis

The announcement of the arrival of such City heavyweights is a shot in the arm for Bath as they prepare for their Aviva Premiership opener at Leeds Carnegie on Sunday (3pm).

Club owner Bruce Craig has brought the trio onto the board as he seeks to turn Bath into the biggest club in Europe.

Craig intends to tap into their knowledge of retail, leisure, branding, finance, merchandising, marketing, property and customer service.

It is hoped that their arrival will assist in Craig's stated aim of keeping Bath Rugby at what he regards as its "spiritual home" – The Rec.

The announcement is perhaps the clearest statement yet that Craig wants to take the club down an unashamedly commercial route.

It represents another major investment in the club by the chairman, who has already taken out a long lease on Farleigh House in a bid to provide the squad with the best training facilities.

"With some major projects both in the pipeline and already underway, we felt it was the right time to introduce more expertise onto the management board," said Craig.

"We have also been very lucky with so many extremely strong individuals so keen to help the club.

"We are all delighted to announce that Lord MacLaurin, Nick Varney and Chris Coles will be joining us in time for our first board meeting since I took over, which will be in mid-September."

The club has been lining up the trio as directors for some time. The Chronicle can reveal that Lord MacLaurin was at Farleigh House on the same day that Sir Ian McGeechan was unveiled as the club's performance director.