Pest control-to-office services group Rentokil has reported a six per cent fall in profits.

But the Sussex-based company has diposed of a number of operations making a comparison of profits an unreliable indicator of performance.

Rentokil, which for years grew by acquisition, has sold several businesses, concentrating on hiving off its non-core distribution, plant hire and personnel recruitment operations in the UK and US.

The plan, which is now 90 per cent complete, has seen Rentokil focus on its core businesses of hygiene, security, pest control, conferencing and parcels delivery.

The disposals have so far raised £545 million against a target of at least £600 million and cash has been put towards Rentokil's share buy-back plan which has seen it snap up 20 per cent of its shares for £1 billion.

However, Sir Clive Thompson, Rentokil's chief executive, said despite this spending, the company could still part with a further £1.5 billion on acquisitions and share buy-backs.

The group was seeking acquisitions to boost its core businesses in Europe, the US and in parts of Asia Pacific.

Rentokil is also ramping up the sales and marketing spend it ploughs into its core companies and Sir Clive said he expected the rate of growth of turnover in core activities would improve in the second half of this year, with profits comparable to the second half of last year.

However, Sir Clive added the transformation of the business made it difficult to compare profit figures for the last six months.

Pre-tax profits for the half-year to June 30 came in at £207.5 million against £253 million last time.

Turnover was £1.43 billion against £1.5 billion.

The group was previously famous for its target of 20 per cent annual earnings growth but it abandoned this a year ago as it announced plans to transform the business.