Spotless Group has been selling meat pies to the masses at the MCG for 40 years in one of its longest-running catering contracts, but it was coathangers that caused the biggest heartburn for a company many have labelled as a serial underperformer.

The $1.01 billion capital raising by Downer EDI being handled by UBS on Tuesday, accompanying a Downer takeover bid priced at $1.15 in cash per share for Spotless, is a likely forerunner to yet another ownership change for a company that began as a single dry-cleaning business in Fitzroy in Melbourne's inner-north in 1946. It was a tough, working-class suburb, and the trendy bearded hipsters who are a modern-day staple of the area were a long way off into the future.