Praxair, Linde deal gets conditional EU nod
Linde AG and Praxair Inc. won conditional European Union approval for their $45 billion merger, as they scramble to win over U.S. antitrust authorities for a deal that combines two of the biggest suppliers of industrial gas.
The European Commission said its competition concerns were addressed after the companies agreed to sell Praxair’s entire gas business in Europe as well as the Danbury-based company’s stake in an Italian joint venture and several helium sourcing contracts.
“Gases — like oxygen and helium — are crucial inputs for a large variety of products we need and use in our everyday life,” EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement Monday. “With this decision, we make sure that the merger of Praxair and Linde will not result in further concentration in Europe and that customers will continue to benefit from competition in these markets.”
After the EU’s decision, and Praxair still have one major hurdle in their quest for regulatory approvals. The companies were caught off guard earlier this month by a notice from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to sell more assets in order to gain antitrust approval even after they had agreed to roughly $9 billion worth of disposals in Europe and North America.
The latest requests from U.S. regulators are “more onerous than previously expected,” Linde said earlier this month. It generates about 23 percent of its reve- nue in the country. Praxair and Linde representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.
The Linde-Praxair pledge allows Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corp. to gain a foothold in Europe after the merging companies agreed last month to sell several industrial-gas plants to the Japanese firm to answer EU concerns about reduced rivalry in the industrialgases market. Linde is also considering the sale of additional assets in the U.S. that would mark a near-com-Linde plete retreat from industrial gas operations in the country, people said earlier this month.
As part of their agreement to combine, the companies set limits on the assets they would be willing to jettison in return for regulatory clearance. Under their deal, the units to be sold must have annual sales of less than $4.2 billion or income before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of less than 1.1 billion euros.