For a company with a reputation for boring predictability and consistent revenue growth, 2014 was a disappointing year at Intertek. The FTSE 100 company has tended to increase those revenues organically in the high single digits and to use strategic acquisitions to push that rate into double digits.
The long-term story remains, because Intertek’s work, testing anything from oil and minerals as they are taken out of the ground to any kind of consumer goods, can only continue to grow as safety regulations tighten.
However, there was a decline in work from the minerals sector in the first half of the year, partly because of a general industry malaise and partly because Indonesia, the second-largest country for Intertek by volume, decided to ban the