Intertek Group plc

About Us

For more than 130 years, companies around the world have depended on Intertek to ensure the quality and safety of their products, processes and systems.

We go beyond testing, inspecting and certifying products; we are a Total Quality Assurance provider to industries worldwide. Through our global network of state-of-the-art facilities and industry-leading technical expertise we provide innovative and bespoke Assurance, Testing, Inspection and Certification services to customers. We provide a systemic approach to supporting our customers' Quality Assurance efforts in each of the areas of their operations including R&D, raw materials sourcing, components suppliers, manufacturing, transportation, distribution and retail channels, and consumer management.

Intertek is an industry leader with more than 40,000 employees in 1,000 locations in over 100 countries. We deliver Quality Assurance solutions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with our industry-winning processes and customer-centric culture. Whether your business is local or global, we can ensure your products meet quality, health, environmental, safety, and social accountability standards for virtually any market around the world. We hold extensive global accreditations, recognitions, and agreements, and our knowledge of and expertise in overcoming regulatory, market, and supply chain hurdles is unrivaled.

Intertek can sharpen your competitive edge

    With reliable testing and certification for faster regulatory approval
    Through rapid, efficient entry to virtually any market in the world
    With Total Quality Assurance across your supply chain
    Through innovative leadership in meeting social accountability standards
    By reducing cost and minimizing health, safety, and security risks
    By becoming a TRUSTED BRAND

What We Do

Intertek provides leading Total Quality Assurance services to industries worldwide.

We deliver innovative and bespoke Assurance, Testing, Inspection and Certification solutions for our customers' operations and supply chains 24 hours a day, 7 days a week across 100 countries.


Our Services

Auditing

Conducting audits help ensure your compliance with global market, industry and regulatory requirements.
Certification

Certification proves your credibility to the market. To deliver that credibility, Intertek maintains extensive global accreditations and recognitions for our testing and certification services.
Consulting

Get on-demand expertise to better facilitate your business without adding to your overhead. Elevate your products, processes and people to new heights with Intertek as your service.

Inspection

Intertek's diverse range of inspection services can provide trusted support for products, projects and processes.
Sourcing

Intertek offers global sourcing and supplier selection to help brands, retailers and suppliers across a wide range of industries.
Testing & Analysis

From laboratory testing to regulatory compliance and beyond, advance the value and marketability of your products with testing and certification services from Intertek.

Training

Equip your team with essential information via Intertek training opportunities.

Our Mission, Vision and Values



For more than 130 years, Intertek's story has always been about innovation. In 1885 we began testing and certifying grain cargoes before they were put to sea, and in 1888 we pioneered the idea of independent testing laboratories. Then in 1896, the greatest inventor of them all became part of our story. When Thomas Edison released the wonders of electricity and the light bulb he wanted to ensure that his products were checked, tested and safe. He established the Lamp Testing Bureau, later to become the Electrical Testing Laboratories.

Over a century later, we maintain his ETL mark of quality, and continue to establish new standards in quality to protect consumers and our clients' reputations across the world. Today we are a global force, operating in over 100 countries, offering a Total Quality Assurance proposition, 24/7 to customers across the globe.

The foundations and aspirations of our business remain true to those established by our visionary founders, and their innovation and energy continue to be our inspiration. Our passion and entrepreneurial culture will ensure that we deliver for our customers in safety, quality and assurance – today and in the future.
Our Purpose

To bring quality and safety to life.

Our Mission

To exceed our customers' expectations with innovative and bespoke Assurance, Testing, Inspection and Certification services for their operations and supply chain. Globally. 24/7.

Our Vision

To become the world's most trusted partner for Quality Assurance.

Our Values

    We are a global family that values diversity.
    We always do the right thing. With precision, pace and passion.
    We trust each other and have fun winning together.
    We own and shape our future.
    We create sustainable growth. For All.

History



The Intertek story starts at the inception of the modern testing industry. The history of Intertek goes back over 130 years, and evolves from the combined growth of a number of innovative companies.
1880 - 1900

    Mr. Caleb Brett founds a marine surveying business in the United Kingdom to offer independent testing and certification of ships' cargoes (1885).
    Mr. Milton Hersey establishes a chemical testing laboratory in Montreal, Quebec, pioneering the idea of independent testing laboratories (1888).
    Mr. Thomas Edison establishes the Lamp Testing Bureau of his Edison Electric Illuminating Company in America, the origin of the world's electric light industry (1896).
        The Lamp Testing Bureau is later renamed 'Electrical Testing Laboratories,' and later shortened to 'ETL.'
        It grows to provide testing to General Electric and other industries being created by new invention at the time, such as air-conditioning, over the next 40 years.
     

1900-1940

    SEMKO is founded in Sweden to provide Swedish electrical and electronic product safety testing (1925).
        SEMKO registers the 'S-Mark.' It becomes a product testing organisation accredited by the Swedish government for its mandatory certification.
        It further expands to provide certifications for products in wider Nordic markets, and the international electrical and electronic industries over the next 40 years.
     
    Mr. Chas Warnock forms the Chas Warnock Company in Montreal, Canada to inspect steel products (1927).

1940-1980

    Milton Hersey and Chas Warnock merge their companies to create 'Warnock Hersey', one of the largest testing and inspection entities in Canada (1954). The company expands into minerals, lumber testing and the US market.
    Inchcape, a diverse international group at the time enters the testing industry by establishing 'Labtest' Hong Kong to serve the internal needs of the Dodwell companies, a multinational corporation acquired by Inchcape (1973).
        Labtest originally focuses on textile testing, and later broadens across other consumer goods. It is the first commercial consumer goods testing facility in Hong Kong.
        Labtest expands internationally, extending its business in the United States (1975) and establishing labs in the Philippines (1979), Taiwan (1982), New York city (1983), Singapore (1984), Thailand (1985) and the UK (1987) and China (1989).
     
    Inchcape acquires multiple testing and inspection companies, ranging from petroleum, petrochemical, textiles, to electronics and minerals testing (1975- 1980)

1980-2000

    Inchcape reorganises. It forms a specific testing business stream, 'Inchcape Testing Services' (1987), including Labtest and its other acquisitions in the testing, inspection and certification area.
    Inchcape acquires the Caleb Brett group of companies, and the government trade and inspection services businesses in the UK ('Foreign Trade Standards') and the US (Intertek Testing Services and Intertek Services International) (1984-87).
    Labtest acquires the product safety consulting business RAM (Risk Analysis & Management™). RAM supports clients such as McDonalds and their toy safety programme (1988).
    Inchcape acquires ETL Testing Laboratories (1988).
    Inchcape continues its acquisitive path, buying Warnock Hersey in North America (1992) and SEMKO in Sweden (1994), and other testing companies. It amasses a range of accreditations and registrations needed to provide certification, inspection and testing services across various industries including automotive, aerospace, electronic and consumer goods.

    Inchcape's Testing Services division is bought as part of a management buy-out by Charterhouse Development Capital, a global investment company (1996).

    The company is renamed 'Intertek Testing Services,' forming the present-day Intertek. Richard Nelson, the existing CEO of Inchcape Testing Services, becomes CEO of Intertek.

2000 - Present

    Intertek lists on the London Stock Exchange on 29 May 2002, becoming Intertek Group plc.
        It lists with a share price of £4, market capitalisation of £614m, and joining the FTSE 250 in the Support Services sector
        Intertek's stock symbol is ITRK.
        Upon listing, Intertek had around 10,500 employees and around 750 laboratories and offices worldwide and generated around £450m revenue per annum.

    Intertek continues to expand by acquiring complementary companies in the testing, inspection and certification arena, with the wider focus on providing quality and safety services across a wide range of industries (2000 to present).
        Intertek expands its own services and operations in growing areas such as supply-chain management and ethical sourcing services, industrial asset inspection, food, pharmaceutical renewable energies and bio-fuels, solar and wind-powered product services.
        It commences major laboratory outsourcing contracts with companies, including BP, Kodak, DSM, Unilever, ICI, Sabic, Volkswagen and Lilly.
     
    Richard Nelson, CEO of 20 years, retires. Dr. Wolfhart Hauser is appointed CEO in 2005.
    Intertek internal business units were aligned around customers' industries into four core divisions in 2006.
    In January 2011, we reorganised our operational structure to further improve the alignment of our business lines with those of our customers, and renamed certain divisions to better describe their core activities.
        Oil, Chemical & Agri is renamed Commodities, and incorporates Minerals; Analytical Services is renamed Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, and incorporates Health & Environmental; Industrial Services is renamed Industry & Assurance, and incorporates Food, Agri, and Upstream Services.
     
    Intertek's share price on the London Stock Exchange exceeds the £10-mark for the first time in June 2007; and 2011 marked the first time that the share price exceeded the £20-mark.
    Intertek's annual revenue exceeds £GBP 1 billion in 2008, reporting total revenue of £1,003.5k for the full year.
    Intertek enters the FTSE 100 for the first time in 2009.
    In February 2011, Intertek expanded its brand identity to Intertek: Valued Quality, Delivered, underlining the company's global mission of partnering with its customers to provide quality services that add value to their organizations.
    In May 2011, Intertek completed its acquisition of Moody International for £450 million.  As a result, the number of Intertek employees reaches 30,000.
    May 2015: Wolfhart Hauser, CEO retires from Intertek after 10 years of service and is succeeded by André Lacroix.
    Intertek completes four acquisitions in 2015 including PSI for $330m in the US – a provider of testing and assurance services to commercial and civil construction markets – with 2,400 people across 87 locations. At the end of 2015, the number of Intertek employees totals 41,400.

Compliance and Corporate Governance

One of the Group's primary business objectives requires adherence to local, national and international laws, and the requirement that the Group's employees show integrity and honesty in all their dealings. Risk management and internal controls are therefore embedded throughout Intertek, assuring the accuracy and validity of reports and certificates that the Group provides to customers.

The International Federation of Inspection Agents (IFIA) issues a Compliance Code which defines the standards of conduct and integrity with which IFIA members must comply. The Intertek Compliance Code is a document including the detailed set of principles and rules taken from this IFIA Code.

The Group operates a 'zero tolerance' policy in regard to breaches of ethics and all employees are required to sign an agreement, confirming their understanding that any breaches of the Group's Code of Ethics will result in disciplinary action that may include summary dismissal of the employee concerned.

Intertek is committed to maintaining a culture where issues of integrity and professional ethics can be raised and discussed openly. This is why we provide the online Hotline for all employees, contractors and others representing Intertek, to enable confidential reporting of suspected misconduct or breaches of the Code. They can also call the telephone Hotline where calls are answered 24/7 in English by trained specialists and interpreters are available. Independently owned and operated by NAVEX Global, reported concerns will be kept secure and confidential.

All complaints are investigated thoroughly with action taken as appropriate.

What are our compliance goals?

    To avoid conflicts of interest and to act openly, responsibly and within the confines of the law and internationally accepted guidelines.
    To implement current 'best practice' policies in all control procedures.
    To maintain a culture in which all employees know what is expected of them.
    To monitor adherence to organisational controls and reporting procedures.

Who is responsible?

The Intertek Group General Counsel heads the Group's Compliance team and reports to the Group CEO.

Our corporate governance

Intertek is committed to high standards of corporate governance, business integrity and professionalism in all its activities. The Board is responsible for the proper management of the Company and is also accountable to the Company's shareholders for ensuring that principles of good governance are applied.

The Board comprises a balance of Executive and Non-Executive Directors who bring a wide range of skills and experience to its deliberations. The Non-Executive Directors fulfil a vital role in corporate accountability and bring independent judgment to issues of strategy, performance, resources and standards of conduct.

The Board has established an Audit Committee, Nomination Committee, and Remuneration Committee (please click on the name of the Committee to see the Terms of Reference for that Committee) in accordance with the provisions of the Combined Code on Corporate Governance.

Compliance with the UK Corporate Governance Code

The Board is required to report on the operations of the Company by reference to the 2014 UK Corporate Governance Code (the 'Code'), which sets out standards of good practice in relation to board leadership and effectiveness, remuneration, accountability and relations with shareholders. A copy of the Code is available from the UK Financial Reporting Council at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login.

Intertek Group Compliance with the UK Corporate Governance Code – Status [235 KB PDF]

Our internal controls and audits

The Board is ultimately responsible for establishing and maintaining the Group's system of internal controls, and for reviewing its effectiveness. Such a system can realistically only manage, rather than eliminate, the risk of failure to achieve business objectives, and can only provide reasonable assurance against material misstatement or loss.

The Board confirms that, in addition to internal compliance and quality audits, there is an on-going process for identifying, evaluating and managing any significant risks to the Group's short and long-term value, including those arising from social, environmental and ethical matters. The Audit and Risk Committee reviews the effectiveness of the system of internal control during the year. In particular, it reviews and continues to seek to improve the process for identifying and evaluating the significant risks affecting the business and the policies and procedures by which these risks are managed. This is reinforced by the Intertek Code of Ethics, which provides practical guidance and instruction for staff.

Contact the Intertek Compliance Hotline
Compliance Policies

    Intertek Code of Ethics
    Intertek Code of Ethics Agreement
    Intertek Compliance Hotline
    Intertek Anti-Bribery Policy

Corporate Responsibility

Intertek Group is committed to operating in a socially responsible manner as a global corporate citizen.

As a publicly-listed company, the Group's Board of Directors follows corporate governance standards that promote integrity, transparency, and accountability in order to protect and enhance Intertek's value to stakeholders and the long-term success of the company.

We guide many of the world's largest multinational corporations and best-known brands to improve the social, ethical and environmental consequences of their products, services and supply chains. We have adopted a framework approach to our own corporate responsibility. We believe that local managers are best placed to understand and react to their local business environment, within this framework. Our Corporate Social Responsibility Report contained in our Annual Report shows how these policies are being implemented around the Group.

Our integrity is crucial to our business. Intertek is committed to high standards of professional conduct, and to ethical and fair business dealings with our employees, stakeholders, and third parties. Our Compliance Code and compliance structure support adherence to our Code of Ethics.

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