Sector changes all part of a `grand design' for ICI

The appointment of Mr Brendan O'Neill as chief executive of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) last week may prove to be the final step in a daring transformation if it survives as an independent company.

Having decided two years ago to ditch its traditional, commodity chemical base, ICI has picked a marketing man to lead it as it focuses on the consumer and on the brands such as Dulux, Polyfilla and Perspex, central to its future in speciality chemicals.

First, however, Mr O'Neill, who joined ICI as chief operating officer from Diageo last year, must ensure this icon of British industry completes its metamorphosis unscathed.

He takes the top job - he will succeed Mr Charles Miller Smith in April - at a time when ICI is saddled with a debt greater than its £3.8 billion sterling (€5.52 billion) market capitalisation and has been wrong-footed by a series of setbacks on its disposal programme. Its share price has collapsed from a high of £12.44 last May to 540p yesterday.

ICI was slower than rivals to appreciate the depth of the problems that hit Asia last year, and underestimated the impact they would have on other markets - a rare profits warning followed. At one point some analysts had predicted it would make pre-tax profits of over £1 billion in 1998. In the event, as it announced this week, it fared even worse than in 1997, making just £321 million before exceptionals on sales down 16 per cent at £9.3 billion.

Mr O'Neill, who is remembered at Diageo for putting Guinness-sponsored Irish theme bars in virtually every large city in the world, shows no signs of being daunted.

"I'm rather good at coming up with strategies but this company already has a great strategy," the burly 50-year-old said last week, pausing for a sandwich lunch between a packed day of analyst and press briefings on both sides of the Atlantic. "I'm 110 per cent behind the strategy." Brought up in the north-west of England, in St Helens, Mr O'Neill's career has taken him far and wide. The son of an Irish GP, he read Natural Sciences at Cambridge before taking a doctorate in organic chemistry at East Anglia. The experience of spending three years stuck in a roof-top lab convinced him he needed a job with more company and he joined Ford as a graduate trainee. From there, he moved on to do spells at British Leyland, BICC, Midland Bank and finally, from 1987, at Guinness where he rose to become chief executive of the brewing business.

This shifting between sectors and jobs - he has held positions in line management, finance and marketing - was, he says, all part of a "grand design".

"I like learning about different industries. I have a knack of quickly picking up how they work," he says. "Moving around so much also helps keep life interesting."

Former colleagues describe Mr O'Neill as someone who works hard and plays hard - a jovial character equally at ease addressing the board or rolling up his sleeves and demonstrating how to pour a Guinness in two stages.

Mr Michael Pemberton, now a senior executive at CGU, the insurance group, says Mr O'Neill became something of a legend at Guinness for his knowledge of pop music. "He was in a league of his own in pop trivia quizzes at the end of group conferences," he says of the father of three teenagers.

Colleagues say he has drawn on this same grasp of detail in his working life.

"You can never give Brendan too much information," says one. "He's all detail, detail, detail but at the same time he has a strong, strategic perspective." They also praise him for his ability to make decisions quickly and to cope with the strains of running many businesses around the world.

"He's very efficient and immensely dedicated to the company he works for," says a former Guinness colleague. "Whether it was from a brewery in Africa or a hotel room in the US, he would always respond immediately with a clear and defined answer to any queries we had from head office." People who know him say he also has a sharp financial mind: "He could be damned hard on people at budget time," said one, "Nothing got past him easily." There was a flavour of that this week when Mr O'Neill announced a review of ICI's headquarters and central functions. He was guarded about the plans. But he did not rule out a move from Millbank, ICI's opulent headquarters close to London's Houses of Parliament.

While careful not to criticise past strategy - Mr Miller Smith, the present chief executive is, after all, to succeed Sir Ronald Hampel as chairman - Mr O'Neill says he aims to make ICI a truly global business, not just one known for its past as one of Britain's largest and most famous companies.

"People associate us with huge plants in Runcorn and on Teesside," he says. "The reality in the new ICI is that the UK only represents around 10 per cent of sales." He adds that ICI's new core businesses, in areas such as perfume ingredients, food flavourings and paints, have the advantage of requiring smaller-scale investments and more spending on research and development than the massive, capital-intensive projects of the past.

Mr O'Neill's relationship with Mr Miller Smith will be watched closely in the next months. The group is evasive when asked if Mr Miller Smith - the architect of ICI's transition to speciality chemicals - will be an executive or a non-executive, saying he is simply "chairman of ICI".

Mr O'Neill describes the relationship as "harmonious" but insiders predict Mr Miller Smith will be an active chairman.

"If he's not here in person every day, he'll be on the phone," says one executive.

Having clinched his chief executive job - he had been seen as a possible head of Guinness before the merger with Grand Metropolitan came along - Mr O'Neill is clearly determined that both he and ICI will stay the course.

When asked this week if he was afraid that ICI's battered share price made it vulnerable to a predator in a chemicals sector that was consolidating rapidly, he said, with a touch of irritation, "No, not all," and briskly moved on to the next question.