Linde → Praxair
The all-share merger of Germany's Linde AG with America's Praxair, agreed in June 2017 and completed on 31 October 2018, created Linde plc, the world's largest industrial gas supplier, after competition authorities forced the sale of most of Praxair's European business and large parts of Linde's business in the Americas.
A merger of equals in industrial gases; clearance required divesting most of Praxair's European business.
- Value
- $45B
- Announced
- June 2017
- Completed
- October 2018
- Sector
- Industrials
- Deal type
- merger
- Acquirer
- Linde (Germany)
- Target
- Praxair (United States)
Why it mattered
The two companies shared an ancestor: Praxair grew out of Linde's American business, confiscated during the First World War, absorbed into Union Carbide and spun off in 1992. Merger talks broke down in September 2016 and resumed that December. The agreement of 1 June 2017 was framed as a merger of equals under a new Irish holding company: Linde shareholders received 1.54 new shares each, Praxair shareholders one, leaving each side with about 50%. Linde's supervisory board chairman, Wolfgang Reitzle, became chairman and Praxair's Steve Angel chief executive, based in Danbury, Connecticut, with corporate functions split between Danbury and Munich. The partners promised about $1.2bn of annual synergies within roughly three years.
The Federal Trade Commission noted that the deal joined the world's second- and third-largest industrial gas suppliers into the largest. In the United States, by a 4–1 vote on 22 October 2018, the FTC required divestitures in nine product markets, from bulk oxygen to helium, of which the pair would otherwise have controlled two-fifths of world supply; assets in the Americas went to Messer and CVC Capital Partners for $3.3bn, and hydrogen and carbon monoxide plants to Matheson. To satisfy the European Commission, Praxair sold its industrial gases businesses in 12 European countries, with about 2,500 employees, to Taiyo Nippon Sanso for €5.0bn.
What it left behind
About 8% of Linde AG's shares were not tendered in the exchange offer, and the remaining minority was squeezed out in April 2019; the Praxair name was dropped in the United States in September 2020. In March 2023 Linde plc delisted from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and kept only its New York listing, after its chief executive, Sanjiv Lamba, said the dual listing had "constrained our stock valuation through European restrictions". Linde remains the world's largest industrial gas supplier by revenue and market share, registered in Ireland and headquartered in Woking in England. In a cross-border merger of equals, the promises about listings and headquarters are the terms most likely to be revisited once the deal is done: Linde kept its German name but gave up its German listing within five years.