Rentokil ousts Mr 20 per cent

By MICHAEL HARRISON and DAMIAN REECE

Sir Clive Thompson, the founder of the pest control to tropical plants group Rentokil Initial, was ousted as chairman this week after a disastrous profits warning from the company.

The dramatic removal of Sir Clive came just five weeks after he made £9.25 million ($27 million) by cashing in five million Rentokil shares or 70 per cent of his holding in the company.

Sir Clive has been replaced as chairman by the man who instigated his ousting, Brian McGowan, the 1980s corporate raider who helped create the Williams conglomerate.

McGowan said: "Sir Clive's presence, his dominance, was so all-pervading that to change the culture, the style, the emphasis of the business was impossible. We decided we needed to liberate the company from its past. We have had four years of drift.

"This business has gone nowhere. We had to decide who to blame and we chose Sir Clive."

The removal of Sir Clive coincided with a warning that profits would be 15 per cent down on last year. Analysts had been forecasting profits of of about £408 million ($1.2 billion) but Rentokil said that, based on the first four months' trading, it expected them to be £350 million. The shares fell 14 per cent to close down 24p at 151.5p, valuing Rentokil at £2.75 billion.

Sir Clive was made chief executive of Rentokil in 1983 and chairman in 2003 and became famous as Mr Twenty Per Cent after his pledge to increase earnings per share by 20 per cent a year.

He lost his title in 1999 when Rentokil warned it would miss the target for the first time in 17 years and since then its earnings have declined.

He will receive a pay-off worth £455,000 made up of a year's salary and company perks.

But it is his share dealings so close to the announcement of a fresh profits warning that will attract the most attention.

On April 13, Sir Clive sold one tranche of 4 million shares at 185.3p and another 1 million shares at 183.7p, raising £9.25 million and leaving him with 2 million ordinary shares.

He also has a further 6 million share options that are now worthless.

The share sales were signed off by Rentokil's administration director Paul Griffiths.

Sir Clive defended his share dealings and insisted he had resigned from Rentokil because of a split with the board over the group's future strategy.

He said he favoured handing cash back to shareholders and making certain disposals while the board favoured investing for organic growth.

"The reason I sold on 13 April was that it was in the new tax year and also it was a year since I had stepped down from being chief executive.

"I had always intended to diversify my portfolio. At that date the company had no reason to believe it would not hit market expectations."

McGowan has instituted a review of recent share dealings by directors. But a company source said that normal procedures had been followed and there were no indications of anything irregular.

- INDEPENDENT