The enterprise value is said to be $13.4 billion if you include the assumption of debt, but the actual equity buyout price is for $143.00 per share in cash.
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Back in 2009, Airgas’ rival Air Products and Chemicals APD had made an all-stock offer at an implied value of $60 per share to acquire Airgas.
Given that the U.S.is the largest industrial gases market in the world, and Airgas the industry leader in USA packaged gases, this opens up huge growth possibilities for Air Liquide.
Air Liquide shares fell as much as 5.8%, the most since August 24, and were trading down 4.8% at €117.70 at 10:18am in Paris.
“My role right now is to make sure this turns out to be a great deal for Air Liquide, so I’m going to help with the integration”.
Benoit Potier the CEO and chairman of Air Liquide said the acquisition increases the company’s geographic reach in the USA market that is resilient and offers continuous opportunities for growth. Airgas rose 29% to close at $137.35 in NY on Tuesday.
Airgas Inc. founder Peter McCausland says that, for him, it’s always been about the shareholders.
Air Liquide announced that it expected to realize a pretax cost, volume synergies and efficiency post deal of $300 million.
In 2012, Germany’s Linde similarly used its acquisition of Clearwater, Florida-based Lincare Holdings, valued at about $3.8bn, to expand its USA presence.
Over the last 30 years, Airgas and other distributors have been buying out other companies, he said. Air Liquide’s management has a proven track record of executing and integrating acquisitions.
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Airgas customers and employees will benefit from Air Liquide’s unrivalled global footprint and strength in technology, innovation and operational efficiency, while Airgas is ready to bring the entrepreneurial culture and packaged gas excellence that have driven our success to date. “Air Liquide has 100-odd years of generating application technologies”. To finance the deal, Air Liquide plans a capital increase of three-four billion euros as well as the issuance of United States dollar and euro bonds. Air Liquide also sells gases for pharmaceutical and electronics manufacturing. Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Bredin Prat are the French company’s legal advisers.
