January to March 2012: Linde Continues to Achieve Profitable Growth

The technology company The Linde Group continued to achieve profitable growth in the first quarter of 2012, with increases in Group revenue and Group operating profit. In the first three months of the current financial year, Group revenue rose by 5.4 percent to EUR 3.505 bn, compared with EUR 3.325 bn for the first three months of 2011. After adjusting for exchange rate effects, the increase in revenue was 3.1 percent. Linde increased Group operating profit by 6.2 percent to EUR 808 m (2011: EUR 761 m) partly as a result of the rigorous implementation of its HPO (High Performance Organisation) programme, a holistic concept for sustainable process optimisation and productivity gains. In the first quarter of 2012, the Group operating margin rose to 23.1 percent (2011: 22.9 percent). Available material includes general views of the Linde headquarters as well as products and processes.