Air Water agreed to acquire, with effect from August 13, part of Linde India’s industrial gas business including the on-site business for the steelmakers in the southern district of India.

The other day Air Water acquired Praxair’s liquid /cylinder business as well as the on-site supply business for Tata Steel located at Jamshedpur of East India. The acquisition at this time has been launched for the second time in India.

Like the first launch, the acquisition this time is also intended mainly for the regional liquid/cylinder business keeping the on-site supply to steelmakers as its core. The business scale is ¥5.7 billion (converted at ¥1.48 per India Rupee) on an annual basis or so.

　About 80% of the business accounts for the on-site gas supply (ASU output: 1,800 t/d) for JSW Steel located in Bellary (Karnataka State). It also has cylinder filling stations in Hyderabad (Telangana State) and Chennai (Tamil Nadu State). As most of the business focuses on the piping supply, the profit rate is said to be 20% or so.

This case like the previous acquisition was brought as one of the proposals for split transfer in the wake of the business integration between Praxair and Linde, and Air Water made a bid. The acquisition price is estimated at ¥20.4 billion approximately.

With the addition of Air Water’s two on-site plants in the eastern and southern districts, there are three AWI’s business bases including Ellenbarrie of a local industrial gas company acquired in 2013. Air Water’s business scale on the whole in India will be about ¥16.5 billion per annum.

Ellenbarrie in particular is aiming to advance to the southern area, in order to expand its business scale taking advantage of the cylinder filling station which Air Water acquired this time.