Linde To Acquire Rival BOC

Germany's Linde has agreed to acquire U.K.-headquartered BOC Group for €16 per share, or about $15.5 billion at current exchange rates. The offer is subject to clearance by European and U.S. antitrust authorities and to approval by BOC's shareholders and English courts. According to Linde, BOC intends to recommend that its stockholders accept the offer.

Linde says the deal will create the world's largest industrial gas company, with total industrial gas and engineering sales of about $14.3 billion per year.

Linde made an offer for BOC in January that was spurned by the British company (C&EN, Jan. 30, page 10). BOC said at the time that its board rejected the proposal "because of its preconditions and its failure to value fully the growth prospects of BOC." A £1.00-per-share increase in the offer price seemed to overcome those objections.

Apparently, Linde is not worried about satisfying any conditions imposed by antitrust authorities, which blocked a 1999 attempt by Air Liquide and Air Products & Chemicals to buy and split up BOC. "Given the complementary product portfolios of both companies," it says in a statement, "Linde expects that the preconditions could be satisfied." The German firm anticipates this could happen by the end of May. If so, the transaction could be completed by the end of the third quarter.

Linde is counting on annual savings of about $300 million through supply management optimization, combined procurement, and expense reduction. It expects to achieve synergies "quickly and efficiently," pointing to the rapid integration of the Swedish gases firm AGA, which it acquired in 2000.