Air Liquide reported its 2016 third quarter fiscal results on Tuesday, highlighted by significant year-over-year sales gains thanks to its recently-completed acquisition of Radnor, PA-based Airgas — No. 7 on Industrial Distribution's 2016 Big 50 List.
Paris, France-based Air Liquide, now the world's No. 1 producer of gases used in manufacturing, food production and health care, reported Q3 sales of $5.6 billion, a 23.9 percent increase year-over-year, while organic sales decreased 1.1 percent. The company said the organic decline was due to weakened sales in engineering and construction.
Q3 was the first reporting period in which the benefits of the Airgas acquisition were recorded for a full quarter.
The acquisition helped boost Air Liquide's Gas & Services segment sales 29.9 percent in Q3 to $5.2 billion. Excluding Airgas, organic growth in the segment was 2.0 percent. Sales in the Engineering & Construction segment fell 52 percent to $114.4 million.
Airgas also was the primary reason why Air Liquide's Q3 Americas sales spiked to 127.6 percent growth in Q3. Europe sales fell 4.1 percent, Asia-Pacific sales grew 3.6 percent and Middle East and Africa sales fell 6.4 percent.
In early September, Air Liquide completed the divestiture of certain U.S. assets to Matheson Tri-Gas, per conditions set by American anti-trust authorities. Those divestitures included the sale of 18 air separation units in 16 locations; two nitrous oxide production facilities; six carbon dioxide production facilities; and three Airgas retail packaged welding gas stores in Alaska. Under the terms of the agreement, Matheson has acquired production facilities, equipment, inventory, distribution assets and customer contracts and has also hired employees related to the divested assets.
