There is something rather Ghostbusters-like about Rentokil Initial: its men and women turning up at scenes of domestic and commercial chaos equipped with the latest hi-tech garb and scientific kit and with a stated mission of ridding the world of pests. Except that in its case it is not ghouls and phantoms, but fleas, flies, moths and termites. And, of course, rats.
Rentokil, as it then was, was founded in 1925 by a professor at Imperial College London who developed a treatment for ridding the Palace of Westminster of death watch beetles. It listed in 1969 and became Rentokil Initial after its hostile takeover of a larger rival, BET, which owned the Initial laundry and washroom services company.
With mergers and acquisitions central to its