Refrigerant suppliers in merger talks
USA: Industrial gas companies Praxair of the USA and Germany’s Linde, two companies with an historic refrigeration bond, are in merger talks.
Talks are said to be ongoing but the possible tie-up would give a combined market value of around $60m and is likely to trigger antitrust reviews.
Both companies are global suppliers of refrigerants as part of their industrial gases portfolios. While Linde offers a wide range of refrigerants including the new HFO blends and “natural” refrigerants, Praxair has a more limited offering of HCFCs, HFCs and “natural” refrigerants.
Linde operates refrigerant packaging facilities throughout the world with substantial bulk storage, bulk breaking and blending capabilities. Its refrigerants are sold in more than 40 countries throughout America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the South Pacific regions, and operate with many well-known local brands including Linde, BOC (UK), AGA (Scandinavia), TEGA (Germany), AFROX (South Africa), SIGAS (Saudi Arabia) and PSG (South Korea).
Linde’s revenue in 2015 was around $20bn. Praxair, a Fortune 300 had sales of $11bn.
Coincidentally, both companies share a common refrigeration history having been founded by Carl von Linde, the pioneering German scientist and refrigeration engineer. He formed Linde’s fore-runner Gesellschaft für Linde’s Eismaschinen AG in 1879 and founded Linde Air Products, which would later evolve into Praxair, in Cleveland Ohio in 1907.
