Linde Lowers Minimum Acceptance Rate for Praxair Deal

Linde AG (LIN.XE) on Monday lowered the acceptance threshhold for the tender offer for its proposed merger with Praxair Inc. (PX) and extended the deadline.

Shareholders must now accept a tender offer for at least 60% of the German industrial gases company's outstanding shares in exchange for shares in Linde PLC, a holding company. As of Friday afternoon, shareholders had tendered 50.85% of shares. Linde lowered the acceptance threshold from 75% previously.

The company also extended the acceptance period to Nov. 7 from Oct. 24.

Linde said the decision was made with the consent of both Linde and Praxair and was designed to accommodate the fact that certain shareholders, principally index funds, "usually do not tender their shares before the respective index is adjusted to the tendered share line in the context of the exchange offer."

Write to Sonia Amaral Rohter at sonia.amaralrohter@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 23, 2017 05:49 ET (09:49 GMT)