How it started
History
Airgas was founded by chairman and chief executive officer Peter McCausland in 1982, and became a publicly traded company in 1986. Through more than 500 acquisitions and internal growth, Airgas built the largest national distribution network in the packaged gas industry. One of these acquisitions is Red-D-Arc Welderentals which was acquired in 1995 for an undisclosed fee.
On September 8, 2009, Airgas replaced Cooper Industries in the S&P500 index. In October 2009, John McGlade, the president and chief executive officer of Air Products, a competing concern, privately asked McCausland whether he'd be interested in merging the two companies. McCausland rejected the idea. In February 2010, Air Products initiated a public tender offer for Airgas. The offer was extended, and the price increased, throughout the subsequent year. Air Products abandoned the effort on February 15, 2011, after a decision by the Delaware Chancery Court that upheld Airgas's extensive use of a "poison pill" defense.
In November 2015, Airgas agreed to be acquired by France’s Air Liquide for a total of $13.4 billion. This deal was approved by the Airgas Board of Directors and shareholders. Airgas had previously avoided a $5.9 billion hostile takeover by Air Products and Chemicals. The acquisition was finalized and announced on May 23, 2016 and Airgas is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Air Liquide.
In 2019, Airgas signed a definitive agreement to acquire TA Corporate Holdings, Inc. (“Tech Air”), a large independent distributor of industrial gases and welding supplies serving various geographies in the United States.
From Wikipedia’s article on Airgas, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3