In late April of 2012, TNSC acquired, through its American affiliate Matheson Tri-Gas (MTG), US Airweld, a distributor of industrial gases with operations based in Arizona of Southwestern USA. Owing to this acquisition the Group’s US business as a whole reached sales in an approximate amount of 88.5 billion yen (converted at 80 per US Dollar). The Taiyo Nippon Sanso Group has so far been expanding its business in the Northeastern, Midwestern and Southern regions by acquiring the industrial gas companies such as Linweld, Valley National Gases and WIGCI. It was the first deployment of the group down to the Southwestern part of USA, which will help the group fill the uncharted area of business for further expansion of the distribution network.

The acquired company US Airweld, having another base of operations located in New Mexico other than the headquarters in Arizona, has a total scale of sales amounting to 500 million yen and operating profit to 50 million yen. In terms of business segment, the company sells welding-related equipment/materials as well as industrial gases of air separation gas, carbon dioxide and acetylene. The consisting sales ratio of gases and equipment/materials is half and half.

In order to expand the business scale and enhance the earning power, TNSC took up the US as a growing market for the target to pursue the positive business strategies compiled in its Medium-term Business Plan titled “Gear Up 10″ announced in 2011.

According to TNSC’s Public Relations Department, although there is a plan to integrate the gas-filling stations in the Western area in the future, TNSC has no concrete idea to close them at this moment. However, regarding the multiple supply sources of industrial gases, the company has a rationalization policy to integrate the sources into MTG’s air separation units (ASU) as much as possible from now on, aiming to produce a synergistic effect with MTG’s business operations and expand the sales network at the same time.