Intertek Group plc

Intertek Group plc is a British multinational assurance, inspection, product testing and certification company headquartered in London. Its origins lie in three separate businesses: Caleb Brett's marine surveying business, founded in 1885; Milton Hersey's testing laboratory in Montreal, founded in 1888; and a lamp testing centre established by the Association of Edison Illuminating Companies in 1896; these were acquired by Inchcape plc between the 1980s and 1990s before being bought by the private equity firm Charterhouse Capital Partners in November 1996 for 380 million pounds and renamed Intertek. The company now operates more than 1,000 laboratories and offices in over 100 countries with about 45,000 employees, providing quality assurance to industries including construction, healthcare, food and transport, and performs roughly 250,000 tests a year for United States government agencies. Intertek is listed on the London Stock Exchange as a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.