Bigger than Marks & Spencer or Royal Mail, Intertek is the FTSE 100 company no one has heard of. Testing, inspecting and certifying products and systems for companies around the world is not the most glamorous of occupations but, boy, does it pay. Intertek shares have rocketed ninefold from their £4 float price in 2002.
The company put in a solid rather than spectacular performance in the first six months of the year. It continues to be dragged back by the big freeze in the oil and gas and mining industries. Sales in its resources division, which accounted for one sixth of profits in the good years, fell by 4 per cent. Strip out the benefit of acquisitions and they were down by 11 per