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INTRODUCTION As one of the world’s leading building materials company, Hanson had taken a lot of changes and revolutions. In 1964 James Hanson and Gordon White created Hanson Trust out of the former Wiles Group. Hanson PLC went on to become one of the world’s biggest companies with annual profits of more than £1.5 billion and a strategy of growth through acquisition. In the 1970s and 80s Lords Hanson and White turned Hanson into a multi-national concern with interests across the world ranging from chemical factories in the US to electricity supply in the UK and gold mines in Australia. Hanson produced cigarettes and batteries, timber and toys, golf clubs and Jacuzzis, cod liver oil capsules and cranes. By the mid-1990s the climate in which Hanson operated began to change as investors began to look beyond the traditional big conglomerate to companies focused on single sectors. In January 1996 the decision to split the business into four separate companies was taken. Imperial Tobacco, The Energy Group and the US chemicals business, Millennium, subsequently became quoted companies in their own right. Hanson’s strategy was to change from a diversified industrial conglomerate into a focused heavy building materials busine