France's Air Liquide takes over Japan unit from competitor Linde

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2006

TOKYO (AFP) — France's Air Liquide has made Japan Air Gases a fully owned subsidiary, buying the remaining 45 percent share in the company from German engineering conglomerate Linde for 778 million dollars. Linde sold the operations after taking over Britain's BOC group in September, through which the German company overtook Air Liquide to be the world's biggest maker of industrial gases.

Japan Air Gases, which employs more than 2,000 people, was created in 2003 through a merger between Air Liquide Japan and BOC's Japanese subsidiary Osaka Sanso Kogyo. Air Liquide, in a statement received here overnight, said it would buy the Linde group's 45 percent stake in the company for 590 million euros (778 million dollars, 92 billion yen). The acquisition of Japan Air Gases, whose...