Long-cherished fears of stockbrokers come true: the supposed acquisition of Praxair in the USA was more of a takeover of the industrial gases group Linde by the US competitor. Accordingly, Linde shares should now even withdraw from the DAX.
The industrial gases group Linde wants to say goodbye to the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The DAX group announced that the board of directors had decided to propose to the shareholders that they withdraw from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. In the future, Linde would then only be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company justified this by saying that the double listing had a negative impact on the company’s valuation. In the event of a withdrawal, Deutsche Börse would lose a heavyweight and one of the most valuable companies in the leading German index DAX.
In fact, Linde has not been a German company since 2018. Because at that time the former Bavarian group merged with the US competitor Praxair and became Linde plc. Historically, both companies are even connected, as Praxair’s roots lie in the former US subsidiary of Linde, which was expropriated during the First World War.
The German name stayed with the “reunification” in 2018, otherwise Germany has not played a significant role in corporate management since then. Praxair boss Steve Angel became chairman of the board, and the US manager was in office until March of this year. Angel’s successor Sanjiv Lamba was born in India but is a manager of the old German Linde.
The company’s head office is in Woking, UK, but its legal and tax base is Dublin, Ireland – management at the time denied it was trying to save taxes in this way. The annual report is also drawn up in accordance with Irish law. Since then, the total remuneration of the board of directors, which every German DAX company has to report, has no longer been comprehensible. Angel was by far the top earner among the DAX CEOs in 2020, he received the equivalent of around 47 million euros.
So far this year, the German stock market has performed worse than in the USA, due to the Ukraine war and the associated energy crisis. While inflation is also high in the US, electricity and gas prices are lower. In the event of the implementation of the withdrawal plans, the Linde executive floor wants to set up a new holding company as a legal vehicle, the shareholders would receive new shares in this holding company instead of their old Linde shares, which should be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, it said. However, the new holding company will continue to be called Linde.
