This is less than he made as president of the administrative board at the Swiss building materials company, LafargeHolcim.

As chairman of the supervisory board of Linde, he earns about €1 million ($1.12 million) a year. He would also make more money after the merger, but alleging that he is only going through with the deal because of this is unfair. The latter, a perfectionist engineer, is convinced that he can create a better company with this merger - larger than BMW, where he once worked but never quite made it to the top. Praxair boss Steve Angel - a hardball executive with a cool exterior - has raised amused eyebrows at Mr. “His reputation has been damaged for good,” said a personnel consultant.Įven if the 68-year-old has been misunderstood or treated unjustly, he can still give a speech with animated passion. Back then, around a thousand people were protesting in front of Linde headquarters in Munich, accusing him of handing over the business to Americans just for personal gain. Reitzle to use his casting vote than it would have been several weeks ago. As expected, Linde stocks rose in expectation of the merger. Reitzle’s plan got 94 percent approval from investors. The majority of investors appear to be united about the logic of the merger. But most of the criticism at this level has only been about how Mr. He made the mistake, for instance, of going into the first round of merger negotiations with a divided board of directors. Reitzle mixes too much on the operative side of things, and caused chaos at the executive level last year. “We’re missing a clear division of roles between the supervisory board and the board of directors,” said fund manager Ingo Speich at Union Investment. This is despite the fact that, at the annual shareholders meeting a few weeks ago, he was roundly criticized. Reitzle recently got positive signals for the merger. “He must represent the interests of the owners.” And from them, Mr. “This is not a right, but a responsibility,” said an insider at Linde. Reitzle will have to use his casting vote - he gets to vote twice and break any tie - to overpower that opposition. If board representatives of the workforce vote “no” in line with what the unions have recently signaled, then Mr. Reitzle of handing over the business to the Americans just for personal gain. But no further deals are expected to be done on this front before the final vote of the Linde supervisory board.ĭemonstrators protested in front of Linde headquarters, accusing Mr.

They agreed to the deal after negotiating concessions to retain jobs. But critical voices among the workforce, who fear the loss of thousands of jobs in Europe, have made themselves heard. If it goes ahead, this merger will create the world’s biggest gas company.Īdvocates of the merger say that there will not be any disadvantageous changes for Linde's global staff. Linde is a producer of industrial gases used in everything from manufacturing to medicine Linde products do everything from power emission-free vehicles to cool the giant magnets at CERN, the European organization for ground breaking nuclear research. Reitzle must have taken satisfaction from the results as he has always maintained that only a small circle of executives at Linde headquarters in Munich were opposed to the €60 billion ($67.1 billion) project. Reitzle, who will take it as another sign to try and press ahead with finalizing the merger: He will push for closure at a meeting of the supervisory board expected this week. The results: Over 60 percent were for the merger and a further 20 percent said they could live with it. The chairman of Linde's board of directors, Aldo Belloni, had had all the board members vote, online and anonymously, on the planned merger between Linde and US company Praxair while at an executive meeting in Taipei. A few days ago, there was at last a little good news for Wolfgang Reitzle, chairman of Linde's supervisory board.

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