UK: BRITAIN'S MOST ADMIRED COMPANIES - RENTOKIL TOPPLES GLAXO.

High profits and share price are one measure of a company's success, but peer praise is perhaps harder won. Management Today's survey reveals the esteem in which Britain's biggest companies are held by their competitors.

It's odd - though, given its record, not entirely surprising - that Britain's most admired company is also one of its most inelegantly named. 'Rentokil', as the company's chief executive Clive Thompson has often rued, 'is a disaster in any language'; so disastrous that, according to some, Thompson should replace its three harsh syllables - literally 'rent-to-kill' - with something more benign.