Air Liquide buys Airgas for $10.3 billion

Sounds like a bunch of hot air

(AL corporate employee here) Still a lot of approvals to go through for this to be "official" but this is huge. We would make up 98% of the industrial gas business in the U.S.

I wonder when will they buy Air Solids to control the entire states of matter market.

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We would make up 98% of the industrial gas business in the U.S.

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Where are you getting that figure? Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't AL have a fairly limited footprint in the US?

Airgas was the dominant supplier, but competitors like praxair and Air Products, and the hundreds of independents seemed to hold more than 2% of the market. The acquisition makes a lot of sense, the businesses are complementary to each other and it gives AL a foothold in the only market that they weren't dominating, which happens to be the largest market in the world

Numbers provided internally by a few folks. Could be misleading or directed toward a specific business. They will increase our foothold in packaged industrial gases by a huge margin.

Meaning current AL liquid bulk customers? While Airgas is predominantly cylinder gasses, they have a large and growing number of bulk liquid accounts as well.

Right bc with those combined accounts they would control too much of the liquid bulk market as I understood it.

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Maybe Airgas was 98% of packaged gas market share. That still doesn't sound close to accurate. The "corporate" Air Liquide guy said 98% of industrial gases which is wayyyyy more than just packaged gases. Even so, 98% of packaged gases is still hard to believe when you have Gas and Supply, Red Ball, Wesco, National Welders Supply, Capital Welders, etc just in the gulf coast.

Airgas is dominant on a national level in packaged gases. It's just that 98% figure doesn't sound right in my experience.

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It's just that 98% figure doesn't sound right in my experience.

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that is because it isn't right. Several articles about the purchase note that Airgas's market is 98% in the US - noting the strategic play into the NA market by Air Liquide. I am sure this guy heard/read that stat and conflated it with Airgas has 98% of the NA market.