Ambius is the name of the company reported to be the new White House interior plantscaping provider. A part of Rentokil Initial plc, a U.K. company, it is the largest interior plantscaping company in the world.
Ambius, while large for the interior plantscaping industry, is a small part of Rentokil. I always wonder whether they will keep or sell this business.
The past years have been financially tumultuous for Rentokil and there has been much speculation about the sale of various divisions of the company.
The recent move of the Ambius headquarters offices from London back to the Chicago area only fuels the speculation. In the process, the former U.S. president left the company with no public announcement that I know of.
Chicago is the birthplace of Ambius. Gerry Leider formed it in 1963 as Tropical Plant Rentals a private company owned by the Leider family. When I entered the business in the mid ‘70s, TPR had entered other markets and was the dominant company in the interior plantscaping business.
In 1988 Gerry Leider spearheaded the sale of TPR to Rentokil Initial plc a U.K. company primarily involved in rodent control.
Rentokil was long known to some as the “Queen’s rat catcher”, not exactly a compatible name for a plant business. In 2003, the name was changed to Initial Tropical Plants here in the U.S. and more recently in 2008 rebranded as Ambius.
After the sale, Rentokil retained Leider as a consultant. He then traveled around the U.S. buying up smaller companies on behalf of Rentokil. I still view this as a very negative turn of events for the U.S. interior plantscaping industry and the green industry in general.
The Rentokil buyout program wiped out a very significant part of the entrepreneurial talent in the business. Many experienced and forward looking business people simply left the industry. That was a loss of significance to the health of the U.S. horticultural industry in general. In my opinion, we still feel the effects today.
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