The Linde Group is a world-leading gases and engineering company which operates in around 100 countries and has more than 50,000 employees. It achieved sales in the 2007 financial year of EUR 12.306bn. The strategy of The Linde Group is geared towards sustainable earnings-based growth and focuses on the expansion of its international business with forward-looking products and services.

Organisation

The Group comprises three divisions: Gases and Engineering (the two core divisions) and Gist (logistics services, reported under “Other activities”). The largest division, Gases, has four operating segments, Western Europe, the Americas, Asia & Eastern Europe, and South Pacific & Africa, which are subdivided into nine Regional Business Units (RBUs). The Gases Division also includes the two Global Business Units (GBUs) – Healthcare (medical gases) and Tonnage (on-site) – and the two Business Areas (BAs) – Merchant & Packaged Gases (liquefied and cylinder gases) and Electronics (electronic gases).

Gases Division

The Linde Group is a world leader in the international gases market. We offer a wide range of compressed and liquefied gases as well as chemicals and we are therefore an important and reliable partner for a huge variety of industries. Our gases are used, for example, in the energy sector, in steel production, chemical processing, environmental protection and welding, as well as in food processing, glass production and electronics. We are also investing in the expansion of our fast-growing Healthcare business, i.e. medical gases, and we are a leading global player in the development of environmentally friendly hydrogen technology.

Engineering Division

Our Engineering Division is successful throughout the world, with its focus on promising market segments such as olefin plants, natural gas plants and air separation plants, as well as hydrogen and synthesis gas plants. In contrast to virtually all our competitors, we are able to call on our own extensive process engineering know-how in the planning, project development and construction of turnkey industrial plants. Linde plants are used in a wide variety of fields: in the petrochemical and chemical industries, in refineries and fertiliser plants, to recover air gases, to produce hydrogen and synthesis gases, to treat natural gas, and in the pharmaceutical industry.