21.05.2004

Rentokil ousts Sir Clive

Rentokil Initial the previous owner of Initial (formerly GWS) crane hire, PTP (now Loxam) aerial platform hire, Stephens & Carter, Martin Thomas and Hiway scaffolds, BET plant services and other Crane and Access companies in the UK, Ireland and the USA has sacked Sir Clive Thompson its chairman and the man once dubbed as “Mr. 20 percent” because of his pledge to grow profits by this amount each year.

The company also admitted that it made a mistake in promoting him from Chief executive to Chairman two years ago.
Thompson will be replaced by his deputy, Brian McGowan, who is quoted as saying that he has “liberated the company from its past”.

Rentokil acquired BET in a hostile takeover battle and then confounded most analysts by holding on to the crane and access rental companies, even going as far as rebranding Grayston White and Sparrows as Initial! The businesses were eventually sold off with the scaffold companies going to SGB, The American businesses going to Ashtead, PTP going to Loxam of France and the Initial crane hire fleet going to Ainscough.

The failure to make the Rental business fit in with low capital requirement businesses such as pest control, facilities managements, cleaning and security came as no surprise to industry experts, and the main impact of the BET acquisition was to end the long record of 20 percent growth targets while proving a distraction to the groups core business. The company has suffered from four years of drift according to some analysts, current CEO James Wilde, fighting to reverse this trend clashed with Thompson on key strategies, which eventually led to the surprise boardroom coup, which ousted Thompson.