Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Jillian Ambrose and Jasper Jolly

Chemicals, cars, Man Utd: has Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos got the formula wrong?

Jim Ratcliffe, CEO of British petrochemicals company Ineos
Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos chemicals conglomerate has expanded from a single Belgian oil refinery to about 30 distinct companies. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire chemicals magnate behind Manchester United, is a man who likes a beer. He considers this important enough to include in the eccentric mission statement pictogram he devised to “capture how Ineos works, and why”.

The Ineos Compass, which he devised in 2022, includes a dizzying array of words and phrases, divided between those that Ratcliffe likes (“a beer”, “out of the box thinking”, “doggedness”) and those that he doesn’t (“politics”, “losing money”, “people who get on the bus”). If there are clues to Ratcliffe’s vertiginous rise and recent troubles they might be here.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.