Taking Stock

Remember ADT, the Michael Ashcroft vehicle? Although the corporate magician has left the company, ADT, now called Tyco International, is still buying companies. Its latest acquisition is Keystone International, an industrial valves group. Mr Ashcroft left ADT around pounds 150m richer. Tyco is still based in Bermuda. Its shares, traded in London, fell 450p to 4,050p.

Mears, a building services group, has completed the takeover of a Manchester maintenance contractor and has high hopes of completing another acquisition in the next few weeks. It is still winning local council contracts, the latest being a pounds 6m three-year deal with Basildon. Interim profits rose 33 per cent to pounds 272,000 and the year's results should nudge pounds 700,000. The shares held at 12.5p.