In this week's Edge, we tell the story of Rollins – the world’s largest pest control group.
Full cover exploration:
In the late 1890s, a teenager on a Pennsylvania farm borrowed fifty cents from his parents, bought arsenic from the apothecary, and started selling rat poison door to door.
By 1909 he had moved south and was calling himself Otto the Rat Man. The company he built became Orkin, one of the most recognized names in America.
Orkin's story, though, is really the beginning of someone else's. In 1964, a small broadcaster bought it for seven times its own size, in what's widely regarded as the first major LBO in American history. That broadcaster became Rollins, and acquiring became the model.
Sixty years later, Rollins owns Orkin and dozens of other local brands, serves more than two million customers across roughly 70 countries, and is closing in on 100 consecutive quarters of revenue growth.
Edge #80: Rollins
