Air Liquide is buying out Airgas for $10.3 billion

French industrial gas producer Air Liquide has agreed to buy U.S. counterpart Airgas in a deal valued at $10.3 billion.

Air Liquide has its North American headquarters in Houston. It has over 5,000 employees in the United States, including more than 1,300 in the Houston area. Air Liquide just completed in October its move to a new and larger office building near Memorial City from its previous location near the Galleria.

Radnor, Pa.-based Airgas has a much smaller Houston presence, but still counts nearly 200 employees in the area.

The companies say Air Liquide will pay $143 in cash for each share of Airgas in a deal that has already been approved by the boards of both companies. Including debt, the deal is worth $13.4 billion.

The acquisition still needs approval from regulators and Airgas shareholders. Airgas will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Air Liquide once the companies complete the deal.

Airgas supplies industrial, medical and specialty gases. Its produces carbon dioxide, dry ice and nitrous oxide as well as other products like welding equipment.

Buying Airgas, which gets 98 percent of its revenue from the U.S., would help Paris-based Air Liquide leapfrog competitors Linde, Air Products & Chemicals and Praxair to the top spot in North America.

The deal comes four years after Air Products abandoned a $5.9 billion hostile bid for Airgas.

The accord with Air Liquide is “a surprise given that Airgas has resisted approaches in the past,” said Jason Miner, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. However, he said, “Airgas is the only large opportunity available in global gas,” leaving competitors to either make a counteroffer for Airgas or grow via smaller, bolt-on acquisitions.

Shares of Airgas rose 29 percent, or $31.17, to $137.35 Tuesday.