Nick Goodway: The name changes but it's purely synthetic

Outlook Don't you just love companies that change their names.

Yule Catto was a boring old British chemical company that could trace its roots back to 1863. It muddled along quite nicely, expanding internationally and improving its products.

Then in the middle of last year it issued a profits warning and five months later changed its name to Synthomer.

Yesterday the renamed polymers specialist (!) announced a 10 per cent fall in first-half profits and said it didn't expect much from Europe in the second half.

Plus ça change...