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įollowing the collapse of the bid, BOC Group developed a new strategy to stimulate business growth in new products and markets and to reshape its existing portfolio of businesses to improve Group performance. On, the bid lapsed, following failure to reach a satisfactory agreement with the United States Federal Trade Commission. The BOC Group's assets were to be divided between Air Liquide and Air Products in the US$11 billion deal. On 13 July 1999, the BOC board approved a pre-conditional cash offer of £14.60 per share.
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made a series of cash offers to acquire the group. Following the breakup of the talks, France's L'Air Liquide S.A. division, 'Union Carbide Industrial Gases', were in possible merger discussions with BOC Group.
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industrial gases company Praxair, which in 1992 spun off from Linde AG's U.S. The enlarged company changed its name to the BOC Group. After 11 years of litigation, in 1978 Airco became a wholly owned subsidiary of BOC. In 1975, the company officially became 'BOC International Ltd', reflecting its success in developing business outside of Britain, and in products beyond oxygen.Īn important part of BOC's history was the acquisition of Airco Industrial Gases, an American competitor. It divested non-strategic assets and concentrated on its primary business, especially the gases and health care markets, and the expansion of these businesses to Europe, the Americas and the Far East. The 1973 oil crisis led to a rethinking of BOC's future strategy. As a result, BOC diversified into the computer business. In 1971, the company installed the largest mainframe computer in Britain, linking a network of computers throughout the country, and sold computer time to outside customers. It established subsidiaries and joint ventures in Jamaica, the Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden and Spain for a number of products which included transformers, magnetising equipment, frozen foods, stable isotopes, radioactively labelled compounds and cryogenic systems. With the plan of expanding into the Far East, it set up British Oxygen (Far East) Ltd, based in Tokyo. Muirhead Ltd, quick-frozen food suppliers, in 1969. It also acquired Ace Refrigeration Ltd and J. One was the refrigeration market and it set up a joint venture called BOC-Linde Refrigeration Ltd., with Linde AG of Germany in 1968. This meant a further increase in business for BOC.īOC diversified into many industries in the 1960s and '70s. In the 1950s, due to the increased demand for automobiles, improved methods of manufacturing steel were invented which required "tonnage" oxygen. After the war, BOC formed subsidiaries in over twenty countries. As in the First World War, the business grew. In the post-war period, it grew by acquisitions, which included Sparklets Ltd, Allen-Liversidge Ltd and the Quasi-Arc Company.ĭuring the Second World War, the gases for munitions and for medical needs were provided by BOC. During the First World War, the business increased significantly as the mass production of needed war machinery-ships, tanks and trucks-involved either metal cutting or welding. In 1906, the Brin brothers renamed the company the British Oxygen Company, or BOC. The new process replaced the inefficient barium oxide process, paving the way for larger-scale and more efficient production.Īs BOC and expansion (1906–1978) In exchange, von Linde was given a stake and a board position in Brin's Oxygen Company, which he held until 1914. The Brin brothers negotiated an agreement to use the Linde patents. The German engineer and founder of the Linde Group, Carl von Linde, won the patent for the process. Around the same time, new cryogenic air separation processes had been devised independently in Britain, the United States and Germany. The main application for gaseous oxygen at that time was in connection with the generation of limelight, used in magic lanterns and theatre lighting.Ī major new market emerged around 1903, with the development of the oxyacetylene welding process. In the early years, the company manufactured oxygen using a high-temperature barium oxide process, known as the Brin process, developed from the work of French scientist Jean-Baptiste Boussingault. was formed in 1886, by two French brothers, Arthur and Leon Brin. History Early years as Brin's Oxygen Company (1886–1905) īrin's Oxygen Company, Ltd. 1.4 Part of the Linde Group (2006–present).1.1 Early years as Brin's Oxygen Company (1886–1905).We have many people contact us regarding Wastewater Operator Certification in many states.
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