It was a favoured phrase of the former chief executive of Smiths Group: if you started with a blank piece of paper, you would not create this company as it is today. Philip Bowman was repeating the thoughts of many a new boss faced with making sense of any conglomerate they have inherited.
His position suggested some pyrotechnics in the structure of the former Smiths Industries, but by the time he left in 2015 after eight years in the job, little had changed. Finally, though, the big bang looks like it might go off, with the company in talks about the separation of its medical devices unit, its largest business accounting for about a third of group revenues and profits and with 22 per cent