A successful conglomerate, its core businesses were badly damaged by the wholesale slaughter of British beef animals following the discovery mad cow disease did, as suspected, move from cattle to humans.

Renamed PIC International after its own biotech subsidiary it merged in 2005 with a matching (bovine) business Genus plc for a market valuation in the same league as Dalgety had attained in the 1990s.

Until the second half of the 20th century when it moved operations to the Northern Hemisphere and transformed itself into a conglomerate the major portion of Dalgety's business was the Australasian wool trade pioneered by John Macarthur in New South Wales.

[1] In December 1842 Canadian Frederick Gonnerman Dalgety arrived in Melbourne, first settled in August 1835, as manager of a new firm which he soon bought.

By 1848 Dalgety was an independent and well-to-do merchant concentrating on the settlers' trade providing merchandise for the squatters and buying their produce.

[3] In 1854 Dalgety moved to London to establish the headquarters of his metropolitan-colonial enterprise though at that time it dealt mainly with the Victorian pastoral industry.

He took with him as London partner Frederick Du Croz and left Charles Ibbotson as a colonial manager-partner in Geelong.

He came back to Victoria in 1857 to establish James Blackwood as another manager-partner in Melbourne but after 1859 he lived permanently in England and his business headquarters remained there to the end of the 20th century.

[6] Over the next three years Dalgety branches opened in Queensland and Western Australia and the properties and other assets of the company increased by 50 per cent.

[7] By 1909 there were branches at Melbourne and Geelong; Sydney and Newcastle; Brisbane, Rockhampton and Townsville; Adelaide; Perth, Fremantle, Kalgoorlie, Albany, Geraldton and Carnarvon; and in Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Napier and Wellington.

[4] In 1927 operations were broadened to include East Africa[8] and then in 1959, by exchange of shares, the majority shareholding in African Mercantile Company was bought.

African Mercantile Company was like the Australian business but in East Africa with eleven branches in Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda and Zanzibar.

As stock and station agents Dalgety arranged the sale of livestock and maintained a strong merchandise operation.

Multi-storey wool stores on valuable sites were sold off and replaced with single storey buildings on city outskirts.

[17] In 1974 Balfour Guthrie bought Spiegel Frozen Foods In Salinas California which harvested and froze "own brand" vegetables.

[18] In 1968 Dalgety acquired one of the largest potato marketing organisations in Britain[19] and in 1969 a pastoral property business, New Zealand and Australian Land Limited, by exchange of shares.

[23] At the end of 1970 The Times "Top 1000" ("a guide to the performance of major British and international groupings") listed Dalgety at 17th in sales but 121st in profits.

Dalgety's 65-68 Leadenhall Street, London EC3 head offices were sold for three times the cost of the hybrid pig investment.

[25] In August Dalgety announced the purchase of South Australian vineyards with a liquor distribution business and BDH an electrical appliance manufacturer.

[34] At the end of 1978 Dalgety raised a total of $125 million by a rights issue to existing shareholders and through a ten-year borrowing facility arranged by Lazard Brothers[35] and it launched a bid for Spillers, a flour milling, bread, pet food and animal feeds business.

[40] According to an interview published in September 1979 by the New York Times Dalgety had made itself USA's second largest processor of frozen foods behind United Brands.

[47] Dalgety announced in August 1983 purchase of the animal feeds, seeds and crop control businesses of the agricultural division of Ranks Hovis McDougall.

[62] Dalgety "the food and commodity group" sold Associated British Maltsters to Harrisons & Crosfield for a net £29 million.

[63] The sale of Balfour Guthrie, Dalgety's Canadian lumber business, to its existing management realised £74.5 million.

[65] Management protested "Dalgety is not a rag bag of unrelated businesses with little strategic direction and a patchy earnings record".

Now committed to foods, agribusiness and commodities trading as core activities, branded foods accounted for 53 per cent of profits[66] Holder of 99 per cent of the pot noodle market Dalgety announced the raising of £87 million by the breaking up and sale of their commodities trader, Gill and Duffus.

[67] Commentators publicly noted Australian businessman Robert Holmes à Court had been stalking Dalgety for some time.

Another one-third of its remaining holding in Dalgety Farmers was sold to Commercial Union Assurance, ANZ Bank and their retirement funds.

[82] This BSE or mad cow disease outbreak was blamed for collapse of Spillers sales of stock food because so many cattle had been slaughtered.

For Dalgety an EU ban on export of beef products was the most expensive result and there was also a contamination scare in their Dutch pet food factory.