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Successful businesses know when and how to adapt and change. This involves growing some areas of activity and cutting back on less profitable areas. Companies can often benefit from acquiring businesses operating in overseas markets. For example in Europe, the USA or the Far East, the availability of new customers or cheaper costs of employing people may give competitive advantage.

This case study describes and analyses the growth of the Davis Service Group. The term Group describes companies that are joined together with a shared ownership. The Davis Service Group provides textile maintenance services in the UK and Europe. This includes linen hire, workwear rental, dust control mat, laundry and washroom services.

The Group operates across Europe from its London headquarters. It employs 16,000 people and has an annual turnover of more than £700 million. The Davis Service Group used to be a conglomerate. A conglomerate is a group consisting of businesses focused on different markets.

In 2001, the Davis Service Group consisted of three main operating companies each of which was the UK market leader in its own sector:

• Sunlight (textile maintenance) hiring sheets to hotels, hospitals and private businesses.
• Sunlight was the original company from which the Group developed
• Elliott (building systems) hiring modular buildings for temporary office space
• HSS (tool hire) operating through 450 outlets in the UK

Although these companies were strong, they operated only in the UK which had become a mature market. This means that there are fewer opportunities for growth. Sunlight was the strongest performing part of the business with 45% of revenues at that time.

Therefore, to improve return on investment to shareholders, the company chose to focus on the linen hire and textile maintenance part of the business and look for ways to grow it overseas.

Strategic choice

Davis Service Group had a number of options to choose from to follow its strategy of overseas growth. A strategy is a plan that a company develops and implements. Strategic choice involves deciding:

• what business sector or market to expand into
• when to expand
• how to expand for example, whether to take over another company, set up a joint venture or set up a new company

International expansion

Expanding into other countries can be a good way to grow a company. In particular, expanding into other areas of the European Union (EU) provides many opportunities for a UK business. The EU currently has 27 member countries. It is a huge potential market. Any business in the European Union has over 500 million customers on its doorstep.

Goods and services can flow freely in the single European market. This means it is much easier to do business in the EU. Trade within this area has risen by 30% since 1992. The development of fast transport links, for example, the Channel Tunnel, high-speed trains and cheaper air links, means people can travel to and across Europe more easily. The Internet and email enable companies to communicate instantly.

British firms locating factories and offices in the EU are able to benefit from a skilled labour force. Within Europe, most member countries use a common currency the Euro. This makes it easy to trade within this market place.

Barriers to international expansion

When a business decides to expand overseas, there are a number of factors which may present barriers that it needs to consider:

• Language differences can lead to confusion. However, English is the main global business language spoken by many people within the EU.
• Currency differences. Most countries within the EU use the Euro. The UK uses the British pound. The value of the pound can go up or down against the value of the Euro. This can make it difficult for a business to predict what its costs and revenues will be. If the pound has a lower value than the Euro, a UK business would pay more for imported materials but receive less for its exported finished products. This would mean less profit.
• Cultural differences. Ways of behaving and doing things vary between countries and even within countries. In business, some behaviours such as buying decisions may be the same. In other cases it is important to respect local differences, for example, how you greet someone new for the first time.
• Legal and administrative differences may vary across countries, for example safety standards for buildings. However, there are international standards that create common requirements.
• Skill levels may vary between countries. In setting up a business that needs particular skills, it makes sense to focus activities in countries where those skills exist.

Inorganic growth

A business can develop by organic growth or inorganic growth. The term inorganic growth describes how a business grows by joining one or more companies together. This can be by:

• merger- two firms join by agreement. Mergers make it possible to share the resources of the two organisations and focus on the best activities of each.
• takeover – one company buys at least 51% of the shares of another company. This enables the company with the larger number of shares to have control over the other business and select which activities to keep.

Integration

Horizontal integration refers to a situation where two firms at the same stage of production join. If Sunlight joined another firm hiring sheets to hotels and hospitals in the UK, this would be an example of horizontal integration.

In contrast, vertical integration joins businesses at different stages of production. For example, Sunlight could join with a company that makes hotel sheets. This shows backward vertical integration where Sunlight benefits from controlling the supply of the sheets it uses. This ensures quality control and on-time delivery.

A business could also consider forward vertical integration. For example, it could join with a distribution company to economise on its transport costs. This could also benefit Sunlight by showing its environmental responsibility.

The Sunlight business was partially vertically integrated by including the cleaning and delivery processes in its service. The advantage of vertical integration is that it gives the business greater control over the supply chain of its product or service.

Acquisition

In 2002, the Davis Service Group acquired Berendsen, a company operating in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland and Germany. Berendsen was an ideal acquisition because, like Sunlight, it was the market leader in providing textile services in its geographical area.

It was better for the Davis Service Group to take over Berendsen rather than set up a new rival company in Europe. Building on Berendsen”s local experience and local market contacts, Davis Service Group could buy into established networks and customer relationships.

When the Davis Service Group took over Berendsen, Berendsen was not performing financially as well as it could. Profitability was below that achieved by Sunlight. The Davis Service Group already had proven management systems in providing textile services.

Taking over Berendsen, rather than merging with it, gave Davis Service Group the control to put the best systems in place at Berendsen. It was able to:

• reduce operating costs, for example, closing down some locations where Berendsen had two outlets operating in the same area
• strengthen the management of the two companies
• save fixed costs, by cutting out the central headquarters of the company. This put Berendsen in a stronger position to improve its sales and profits

Horizontal integration made sense. Sunlight and Berendsen are specialist companies at the same stage of production. It was possible to pool the knowledge and expertise of the two companies so that both benefited.

Strategic fit

The factors that might have been barriers to international growth were easy to overcome in this acquisition:

• Language: Berendsen’s business operates across several European countries and uses English as a common language.
• Cultural differences: buying patterns and the culture in the areas where Berendsen operates are similar to the UK.
• Currency: the countries in which Berensden operates already used the Euro or had currencies linked to the Euro.

Financing the takeover was straightforward: there was a close strategic fit with what Sunlight already did well, which was easy for shareholders and banks to understand. £150 million was raised through selling more shares to existing shareholders. The remainder of the £425 million to purchase Berendsen came from new bank borrowings.

The Davis Service Group successfully delivered the promised returns to its shareholders over the period 2002-2005 and has seen its share price rise accordingly.

The next phase of growth involved some additional small takeovers of companies to strengthen the business position. The focus was on keeping the most efficient units in the growing company. These additional takeovers added a relatively small workload without the need for substantial investment.

Organic growth

Organic growth is when a company increases the turnover of the existing business. 

Much of the growth of Sunlight and Berendsen involves organic growth. These businesses are market leaders that have been able to learn a lot from each other and share good ideas and best practice.

As part of the Group, these companies have increased their customers in existing locations, as well as in other areas of the rapidly developing EU market. Trade and living standards in the EU are growing fast.

Large global companies are opening up new sites and they require textile services from Sunlight and Berendsen. Countries like Poland, which joined the EU in 2003, are experiencing growth in key sectors such as manufacturing so more uniforms are needed. New EU legislation also provides an opportunity for Davis Service Group. For example, the need for protective uniforms for industrial workers provides plenty of new contract work for textile services.

Organic growth – building on existing resources – is sometimes the only way to grow. For example, in many Eastern European countries that were part of the former Soviet Union, there are few companies suitable to take over. Most businesses in these countries had previously been government-owned. They had poor equipment and/or had no need to rent out textiles.

The Davis Service Group needed to grow. Of its original three divisions, the linen hire and textile maintenance services provided by Sunlight offered the greatest opportunities because of the strategic fit factors.

The Group’s other businesses were sold off to concentrate on the potential of the enlarged European textile maintenance business and to provide funds to invest further in this business.

The Davis Service Group is an international business. However, it believes in giving local people responsibility for managing the markets they know best. It has a decentralised approach. The small London Head Office has just 17 people working there. Local managers manage local companies using their expertise in their own markets.

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The University of Chicago The Law School

Abrams environmental law clinic—significant achievements for 2023-24, protecting our great lakes, rivers, and shorelines.

The Abrams Clinic represents Friends of the Chicago River and the Sierra Club in their efforts to hold Trump Tower in downtown Chicago accountable for withdrawing water illegally from the Chicago River. To cool the building, Trump Tower draws water at high volumes, similar to industrial factories or power plants, but Trump Tower operated for more than a decade without ever conducting the legally required studies to determine the impact of those operations on aquatic life or without installing sufficient equipment to protect aquatic life consistent with federal regulations. After the Clinic sent a notice of intent to sue Trump Tower, the State of Illinois filed its own case in the summer of 2018, and the Clinic moved successfully to intervene in that case. In 2023-24, motions practice and discovery continued. Working with co-counsel at Northwestern University’s Pritzker Law School’s Environmental Advocacy Center, the Clinic moved to amend its complaint to include Trump Tower’s systematic underreporting each month of the volume of water that it intakes from and discharges to the Chicago River. The Clinic and co-counsel addressed Trump Tower’s motion to dismiss some of our clients’ claims, and we filed a motion for summary judgment on our claim that Trump Tower has committed a public nuisance. We also worked closely with our expert, Dr. Peter Henderson, on a supplemental disclosure and on defending an additional deposition of him. In summer 2024, the Clinic is defending its motion for summary judgment and challenging Trump Tower’s own motion for summary judgment. The Clinic is also preparing for trial, which could take place as early as fall 2024.

Since 2016, the Abrams Clinic has worked with the Chicago chapter of the Surfrider Foundation to protect water quality along the Lake Michigan shoreline in northwest Indiana, where its members surf. In April 2017, the U. S. Steel plant in Portage, Indiana, spilled approximately 300 pounds of hexavalent chromium into Lake Michigan. In January 2018, the Abrams Clinic filed a suit on behalf of Surfrider against U. S. Steel, alleging multiple violations of U. S. Steel’s discharge permits; the City of Chicago filed suit shortly after. When the US government and the State of Indiana filed their own, separate case, the Clinic filed extensive comments on the proposed consent decree. In August 2021, the court entered a revised consent decree which included provisions advocated for by Surfrider and the City of Chicago, namely a water sampling project that alerts beachgoers as to Lake Michigan’s water quality conditions, better notifications in case of future spills, and improvements to U. S. Steel’s operations and maintenance plans. In the 2023-24 academic year, the Clinic successfully litigated its claims for attorneys’ fees as a substantially prevailing party. Significantly, the court’s order adopted the “Fitzpatrick matrix,” used by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia to determine appropriate hourly rates for civil litigants, endorsed Chicago legal market rates as the appropriate rates for complex environmental litigation in Northwest Indiana, and allowed for partially reconstructed time records. The Clinic’s work, which has received significant media attention, helped to spawn other litigation to address pollution by other industrial facilities in Northwest Indiana and other enforcement against U. S. Steel by the State of Indiana.

In Winter Quarter 2024, Clinic students worked closely with Dr. John Ikerd, an agricultural economist and emeritus professor at the University of Missouri, to file an amicus brief in Food & Water Watch v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency . In that case pending before the Ninth Circuit, Food & Water Watch argues that US EPA is illegally allowing Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, more commonly known as factory farms, to pollute waterways significantly more than is allowable under the Clean Water Act. In the brief for Dr. Ikerd and co-amici Austin Frerick, Crawford Stewardship Project, Family Farm Defenders, Farm Aid, Missouri Rural Crisis Center, National Family Farm Coalition, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, and Western Organization of Resource Councils, we argued that EPA’s refusal to regulate CAFOs effectively is an unwarranted application of “agricultural exceptionalism” to industrial agriculture and that EPA effectively distorts the animal production market by allowing CAFOs to externalize their pollution costs and diminishing the ability of family farms to compete. Attorneys for the litigants will argue the case in September 2024.

Energy and Climate

Energy justice.

The Abrams Clinic supported grassroots organizations advocating for energy justice in low-income communities and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities in Michigan. With the Clinic’s representation, these organizations intervened in cases before the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), which regulates investor-owned utilities. Students conducted discovery, drafted written testimony, cross-examined utility executives, participated in settlement discussions, and filed briefs for these projects. The Clinic’s representation has elevated the concerns of these community organizations and forced both the utilities and regulators to consider issues of equity to an unprecedented degree. This year, on behalf of Soulardarity (Highland Park, MI), We Want Green, Too (Detroit, MI), and Urban Core Collective (Grand Rapids, MI), Clinic students engaged in eight contested cases before the MPSC against DTE Electric, DTE Gas, and Consumers Energy, as well as provided support for our clients’ advocacy in other non-contested MPSC proceedings.

The Clinic started this past fall with wins in three cases. First, the Clinic’s clients settled with DTE Electric in its Integrated Resource Plan case. The settlement included an agreement to close the second dirtiest coal power plant in Michigan three years early, $30 million from DTE’s shareholders to assist low-income customers in paying their bills, and $8 million from DTE’s shareholders toward a community fund that assists low-income customers with installing energy efficiency improvements, renewable energy, and battery technology. Second, in DTE Electric’s 2023 request for a rate hike (a “rate case”), the Commission required DTE Electric to develop a more robust environmental justice analysis and rejected the Company’s second attempt to waive consumer protections through a proposed electric utility prepayment program with a questionable history of success during its pilot run. The final Commission order and the administrative law judge’s proposal for final decision cited the Clinic’s testimony and briefs. Third, in Consumers Electric’s 2023 rate case, the Commission rejected the Company’s request for a higher ratepayer-funded return on its investments and required the Company to create a process that will enable intervenors to obtain accurate GIS data. The Clinic intends to use this data to map the disparate impact of infrastructure investment in low-income and BIPOC communities.

In the winter, the Clinic filed public comments regarding DTE Electric and Consumers Energy’s “distribution grid plans” (DGP) as well as supported interventions in two additional cases: Consumers Energy’s voluntary green pricing (VGP) case and the Clinic’s first case against the gas utility DTE Gas. Beginning with the DGP comments, the Clinic first addressed Consumers’s 2023 Electric Distribution Infrastructure Investment Plan (EDIIP), which detailed current distribution system health and the utility’s approximately $7 billion capital project planning ($2 billion of which went unaccounted for in the EDIIP) over 2023–2028. The Clinic then commented on DTE Electric’s 2023 DGP, which outlined the utility’s opaque project prioritization and planned more than $9 billion in capital investments and associated maintenance over 2024–2028. The comments targeted four areas of deficiencies in both the EDIIP and DGP: (1) inadequate consideration of distributed energy resources (DERs) as providing grid reliability, resiliency, and energy transition benefits; (2) flawed environmental justice analysis, particularly with respect to the collection of performance metrics and the narrow implementation of the Michigan Environmental Justice Screen Tool; (3) inequitable investment patterns across census tracts, with emphasis on DTE Electric’s skewed prioritization for retaining its old circuits rather than upgrading those circuits; and (4) failing to engage with community feedback.

For the VGP case against Consumers, the Clinic supported the filing of both an initial brief and reply brief requesting that the Commission reject the Company’s flawed proposal for a “community solar” program. In a prior case, the Clinic advocated for the development of a community solar program that would provide low-income, BIPOC communities with access to clean energy. As a result of our efforts, the Commission approved a settlement agreement requiring the Company “to evaluate and provide a strawman recommendation on community solar in its Voluntary Green Pricing Program.” However, the Company’s subsequent proposal in its VGP case violated the Commission’s order because it (1) was not consistent with the applicable law, MCL 460.1061; (2) was not a true community solar program; (3) lacked essential details; (4) failed to compensate subscribers sufficiently; (5) included overpriced and inflexible subscriptions; (6) excessively limited capacity; and (7) failed to provide a clear pathway for certain participants to transition into other VGP programs. For these reasons, the Clinic argued that the Commission should reject the Company’s proposal.

In DTE Gas’s current rate case, the Clinic worked with four witnesses to develop testimony that would rebut DTE Gas’s request for a rate hike on its customers. The testimony advocated for a pathway to a just energy transition that avoids dumping the costs of stranded gas assets on the low-income and BIPOC communities that are likely to be the last to electrify. Instead, the testimony proposed that the gas and electric utilities undertake integrated planning that would prioritize electric infrastructure over gas infrastructure investment to ensure that DTE Gas does not over-invest in gas infrastructure that will be rendered obsolete in the coming decades. The Clinic also worked with one expert witness to develop an analysis of DTE Gas’s unaffordable bills and inequitable shutoff, deposit, and collections practices. Lastly, the Clinic offered testimony on behalf of and from community members who would be directly impacted by the Company’s rate hike and lack of affordable and quality service. Clinic students have spent the summer drafting an approximately one-hundred-page brief making these arguments formally. We expect the Commission’s decision this fall.

Finally, both DTE Electric and Consumers Energy have filed additional requests for rate increases after the conclusion of their respective rate cases filed in 2023. On behalf of our Clients, the Clinic has intervened in these cases, and clinic students have already reviewed thousands of pages of documents and started to develop arguments and strategies to protect low-income and BIPOC communities from the utility’s ceaseless efforts to increase the cost of energy.

Corporate Climate Greenwashing

The Abrams Environmental Law Clinic worked with a leading international nonprofit dedicated to using the law to protect the environment to research corporate climate greenwashing, focusing on consumer protection, green financing, and securities liability. Clinic students spent the year examining an innovative state law, drafted a fifty-page guide to the statute and relevant cases, and examined how the law would apply to a variety of potential cases. Students then presented their findings in a case study and oral presentation to members of ClientEarth, including the organization’s North American head and members of its European team. The project helped identify the strengths and weaknesses of potential new strategies for increasing corporate accountability in the fight against climate change.

Land Contamination, Lead, and Hazardous Waste

The Abrams Clinic continues to represent East Chicago, Indiana, residents who live or lived on or adjacent to the USS Lead Superfund site. This year, the Clinic worked closely with the East Chicago/Calumet Coalition Community Advisory Group (CAG) to advance the CAG’s advocacy beyond the Superfund site and the adjacent Dupont RCRA site. Through multiple forms of advocacy, the clinics challenged the poor performance and permit modification and renewal attempts of Tradebe Treatment and Recycling, LLC (Tradebe), a hazardous waste storage and recycling facility in the community. Clinic students sent letters to US EPA and Indiana Department of Environmental Management officials about how IDEM has failed to assess meaningful penalties against Tradebe for repeated violations of the law and how IDEM has allowed Tradebe to continue to threaten public and worker health and safety by not improving its operations. Students also drafted substantial comments for the CAG on the US EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule improvements, the Suppliers’ Park proposed cleanup, and Sims Metal’s proposed air permit revisions. The Clinic has also continued working with the CAG, environmental experts, and regulators since US EPA awarded $200,000 to the CAG for community air monitoring. The Clinic and its clients also joined comments drafted by other environmental organizations about poor operations and loose regulatory oversight of several industrial facilities in the area.

Endangered Species

The Abrams Clinic represented the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Hoosier Environmental Council (HEC) in litigation regarding the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s (Service) failure to list the Kirtland’s snake as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The Kirtland’s snake is a small, secretive, non-venomous snake historically located across the Midwest and the Ohio River Valley. Development and climate change have undermined large portions of the snake’s habitat, and populations are declining. Accordingly, the Clinic sued the Service in the US District Court for the District of Columbia last summer over the Service’s denial of CBD’s request to have the Kirtland’s snake protected. This spring, the Clinic was able to reach a settlement with the Service that requires the Service to reconsider its listing decision for the Kirtland’s snake and to pay attorney fees.

The Clinic also represented CBD in preparation for litigation regarding the Service’s failure to list another species as threatened or endangered. Threats from land development and climate change have devastated this species as well, and the species has already been extirpated from two of the sixteen US states in its range. As such, the Clinic worked this winter and spring to prepare a notice of intent (NOI) to sue the Service. The Team poured over hundreds of FOIA documents and dug into the Service’s supporting documentation to create strong arguments against the Service in the imminent litigation. The Clinic will send the NOI and file a complaint in the next few months.

Students and Faculty

Twenty-four law school students from the classes of 2024 and 2025 participated in the Clinic, performing complex legal research, reviewing documents obtained through discovery, drafting legal research memos and briefs, conferring with clients, conducting cross-examination, participating in settlement conferences, and arguing motions. Students secured nine clerkships, five were heading to private practice after graduation, and two are pursuing public interest work. Sam Heppell joined the Clinic from civil rights private practice, bringing the Clinic to its full complement of three attorneys.