Short-sellers spread the poison around Rentokil

RENTOKIL has cemented its dominance as the ‘leading global pest control company’ after completing its £6billion takeover of rival Terminix.

The FTSE 100 firm struck the deal – a mix of cash and shares – in December 2021. So far, so good. But Rentokil also dominated the UK’s shortseller list earlier this week with a whopping 9.9 per cent of its stock out on loan to hedge funds betting its share price would fall, though this has since dropped to 6.1 per cent.

That was a record proportion for Rentokil and is still up from about 5 per cent in September.

The £900 million bet came weeks after Shadowfall Capital – the research outfit best known for exposing German payments processor Wirecard – released a research note questioning the numbers around the margins in its disinfection business during the pandemic. Rentokil denies any wrongdoing.

Shadowfall has gone after other firms including Boohoo, which is the most shorted stock.