Linde Group HQ to move to Munich

just announced and i thought it could be of interest to some people here as they have just bought BOC and will have their second HQ in surrey, so i expect they'll be a few more english bods coming over and possibly a need for english language services here in munich.

There's a few Linde bods on here already - will also mean more Reitzle suits (was at Ford same time as him on floor above, I have never in my life seen better suits than he wears, the man is immaculate) and more Nina Rüge (German TV presenter and Reitzle's wife).

are Linde the gas people?
i thought they already had their HQ in Munich?

They make chocolate, silly:

@ Jimbo

I read "Linde", not "Lindt"... So no chocolate here...

official announcement was today, they've been talking about since they bought BOC. why they chose munich they haven't said. rumour has it that Katrina had some embarrassing photos... ;-). seriously i'd like to know why.

Coz Nina Rüge the boss' wife lives here?
Anyhoo, they are repositioning to concentrate on gas and will be spinning off the fork lift truck et al division - at least that was my understanding.
PS photos? me?? The chance would be a fine thing. In any case, he never once ate in the staff canteen and got the office moved to central London as soon as he could.

which company was that then?

He was running the premium brands section of Ford (Jaguar, Aston Martin...), his office floor was below mine so he was sandwiched between e-commerce Ford Connect and Ford F1/Ford Motorsport at the time. Office was in Ford Europe HQ, Warley, Brentwood, Essex.

Quite. I was taking the mickey. Not very well, obviously.

Linde are the gas people. Their main HQ is in Wiesbaden and this will be moving here.

They also have a division making forklift trucks which I believe is already based in Munich.

Damm working so hard recently with stage 1 of the Linde Gas and BOC IT part of the integration, I missed this. I am a Linde bod as to say.

Linde is pre 6th September 6 companies, (inside the brackets are the divisional HQs) Linde HQ (Wiesbaden), Linde Gas, Linde Engineering (both Munich - Pullach), and then 3 forklift companies, Linde (Aschaffenburg), STILL (Hamburg), and OM Pimespo (Milan). So yes Linde Gas HQ has always been in Munich. Although with the recent Linde take over of BOC, Linde has reorganised a little, with Linde bringing BOC, Linde HQ and Linde Gas together, and then the new HQ will be Munich (rumoured either near the airport or in the city centre) and Guildford (part of the old BOC HQ). The old Linde Gas HQ will remain, I guess as Linde Gas Germany's HQ.

With the Merger, Linde Gas is now the main focus, as Linde Gas now becomes the No. 1 Gas company in the world. The new Linde will simply be called Linde Group.

The three forklift companies will then be combined under the name the Kion Group, and the Kion Group HQ will take over the premises at Wiesbaden. (yes, ready to sell them off as 1 company)

Reizle indeed has travelled a bit. Started at BMW, moved up quickly before going to Ford, then to Jaguar, and joined Linde HQ in Wiesbaden about 2 years ago.

Why Munich ? Because that is where Linde Gas started, Dr. Carl von Linde who invented the refridgeration gases.

Think that answers all the questions here. Time for me to disappear into my hole again, and work on stage 2 of the IT Integration between Linde Gas and BOC.

Anyway surprise to say, I will then (finally after all the reorganisation its all now clear) move back towards Guildford area towards summer 2007. As a result of this Linde Gas UK got sold (or will when the find a buyer) and the Linde Forklift UK company which was previously my destination, will probably later be sold, which is why I have been in my planning for some time, but never actually got to go back. Until now that is, finally I can plan this, and it will come true !

There is indeed Linde in Pullach just down the street from my inlaws.

I know, I work there, actually it not really Pullach, its Höllriegelskreuth, but as this was too difficult to say, the company made the decision to just call it Pullach, as it is in the Pullach county district.

Forklifts or not, they certainly seem to have a lot of pull...

that is just company PR. The real reason is cos Reizle never wanted to leave Munich.

Although I can understand slightly the reasoning behind this, I was having a good laugh with some of my students who work as contracters at Linde. We all agreed it sort of defeated the point when the company is located at the S-Bahn station Höllriegelskreuth. So they will end up saiyng it one way or another. That, or installing a shuttle bus for all the foreign business partners who get off the train in Pullach and stand there, wondering where they are hiding this huge company. (BND can do wonders I guess).

Hmm... this is always a funny point here as well, when they ask you how to get there, although the easiest way usually is just to say to them the station after Pullach, so the Pullach is a reminder to wake up again as it is so far out in the sticks !

Linde never really had that much pull before, but now Linde, a German company is No.1 in the world at something else, they join the elite group with BMW, and Siemens etc. Although some of the top positions are actually going to BOC people, the new CIO is actually the BOC CIO, so sounds like the IT department will probably be relocating lots of functions to the UK.

So what is the hiring scene like now with the new merger? Any ideas? I have been trying to get to Hollriegelskreuth for years now.