For the saddest industrial sight you'll possibly ever see - as well as a symbol for the state of the company in question - take a trip to Billingham, on Teesside.

There you can find the former headquarters of ICI's agricultural division.

You'll know it when you see it. It's a mammoth office block with every window smashed in, front entrance boarded up, weeds taking over the car park.

This is the place where Sir John Harvey Jones and Sir Denys Henderson held court as regional directors before going on to become chairmen of the former bellwether of British industry.

The building was also the HQ of the division responsible for generating about a third of ICI's profits. So what happened? ICI fell out of love with heavy chemicals, ditched all the stuff that gives Teesside its distinctive aroma, and got into speciality chemicals - sexy ones measured in grammes rather than tonnes, such as the smell that goes into the Jennifer Lopez perfume range Glow.

But that's gone spectacularly wrong. Overpaying for its new businesses, losing customers, a profits warning and the departure of top management under an albeit well- remunerated cloud has left ICI looking rather feeble.

In replacing chief executive Brendan O'Neill with James McAdam, former top dog at the Dulux paints division, the company made positive noises that its difficulties are now in hand. "A problem not a crisis," promised ICI chairman Lord Trotman.

Really? Mr McAdam has yet to outline what he's going to do to turn ICI around. And it's difficult to see what he can do. Things might have been tough in the commodity chemicals market but speciality products are throwing up just as many unpleasant surprises. So here's a theory: ICI will not exist within a year.

The shares - at just over £1 - appear to have a slight bid premium built into them, but it's unlikely there will ever be a better time for a bidder to nip in and try to take out ICI's assets.

Incredibly, ICI is valued at only £1bn, surely a temptation. And a bid might rid ICI of what could be more bad news. A US law firm has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of American shareholders claiming that the company misled investors about its Quest fragrances subsidiary.

It's all rather undignified stuff for the company that once dwarfed all others, whose directors were rather like royalty, and whose hundreds of thousands of workers actually made stuff that people wanted and needed.

We can all live without Jennifer Lopez perfumes, and a bid probably can't come quickly enough.

- lan Reeve is Business Correspondent, BBC TV North East & Cumbria.

Published: 23/04/2003