Kroll and O’Gara part company

Kroll O’Gara, the leading corporate security group, is to split into three separate companies after board level disagreements and a failure to merge Kroll’s investigations operations effectively with the physical protection products, including armoured cars, offered by O’Gara. The new operations will concentrate on investigations, armour products and Internet security. Observers say that the end of the project, begun in December 1997, to create a global integrated security company that would offer a full range of services to corporate customers, raises fundamental questions about the feasibility of such ventures and whether public listing is even appropriate. There are concerns that management responsibility may become too far divorced from ownership and that the nature of the work itself, with its emphasis on secrecy and operations that may approach the bounds of legality, serves to deter professional investors.