Surveying the moribund creature that is Rentokil Initial, it is tempting to say, come back Sir Gerry Robinson, all is forgiven. It was just over two years ago that Sir Gerry, with enough chutzpah to floor the most indestructible pest, announced plans to parachute himself into Rentokil. All he wanted was £55 million of free shares. In return Rentokil would receive, er, well, the services of Sir Gerry.

Unsurprisingly, shareholders gave him the raspberry. Even that most reticent of institutions, Legal & General, was moved to blast the former Granada boss’s cunning plan as “totally unacceptable”.

After yesterday’s profit warning, L&G and others must be wondering what might have been if they had said yes. Then the share price was above 160p. Yesterday, it was languishing at just 114p. More than £830 million has been wiped from the value of this once lauded blue chip. Perhaps £55 million wouldn’t have been such a high price to pay.

But there is no evidence to suggest Sir Gerry would have done any better than Doug Flynn, the present chief executive, in turning around Rentokil. Sir Gerry never gave any but the vaguest suggestions of what he planned to do with the company. No one denies Sir Gerry’s twinkly-eyed media skills. Grappling day by day with the brutish logistics of washroom cleaning and office pot plants is something else entirely.

Turning around Rentokil is proving to be the corporate equivalent of despatching a persistent nest of cockroaches. Patience has been required. Yesterday, investors made it plain theirs was running out. A warning that profits would be shaved by less than 5 per cent was punished with a disproportionate 22 per cent markdown in the share price. It is just as well that Rentokil didn’t make the announcement two days earlier, otherwise it would have been among those demoted from the FTSE 100.

The problem this time is in the City Link parcels delivery business, which has suffered a sharp slowdown in the past few weeks. The company line is that this is an industry-wide issue. Consumers are ordering significantly less than they were 12 months ago. If the problem is not company-specific, then yesterday’s share sell-off looks overdone and Mr Flynn will have done well by snapping up 20,000 shares cheaply.

As for Sir Gerry, he is almost certainly having more fun as a television business guru telling the NHS how it should run itself.

His innovative but abortive plan for Rentokil has since found imitators and this time a more favourable response from shareholders. The Northern Rock approaches of both Sir Richard Branson and Luqman Arnold have a touch of Robinson about them.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive