He had already dreamed of the world market leadership and is now pulling a painful Plan B out of the drawer. In mid-September, the merger of the large US gas company Praxiar with the German tradition group Linde.

Now the departing Linde CEO Wolfgang Büchele announces that he will negotiate another efficiency program by the end of April. The "Lift" program is to save a further 370 million euros and thus a total of 550 million by 2019.

Initially, the implementation cost 400 million euros, which is the reason for industry experts to cut roughly 3,000 jobs. Buechele did not want to determine this order of magnitude when presenting the quarterly figures. And then he made it clear: "It's not a last rebellion, and in the summer I'm gone. The program will continue fully. "

Buechele founded Büchele with the faltering world economy. Instead, as in the past, five percent growth is expected to be only three percent. This promotes "the desire for protectionism", which is shown in the United States and Great Britain with the Brexit. There are overcapacities in plant engineering. The low oil price and aggressive competition force to lower costs.

The merger of Praxiar and Linde is defended

Büchele said frankly how deep the cuts had been in the case of the failed merger with the Americans. "There were substantial figures," says Büchele, who defended the ultimately failed project, with the duo Praxair-Linde clearly overtaking the archrival Air Liquide.

Supposedly, the synergy effects should be one billion euros. Thus, they would have led to a large number of jobs. On the 11th of September, the negotiations with the Americans finally ended up in detail questions, as it was later called.

One of the key points was that Linde lost its head office in Munich and the renditiant American company had the say. So no union among equals, as it was thought. Büchele would not have remained a boss anyway, but he would probably have extended his term of office. Ex-boss and chairman of the supervisory board Wolfgang Reitzle would have gained influence.

Gas manufacturers need new business models

In the corridors of Linde, we now speak of a cow trade: Although the headquarters in Munich and Linde remain a German group. However, workers and trade unions must now bear the cuts.

The announcement by Bücheles that the Group intends to increase the dividend also in 2016 is a particularly explosive proposition. The 57-year-old, who grew up in his father's construction company, points to experiences from his parents' house: "It does not help to maintain 1000 jobs in the short term if only 800 survive in the long term."

The Linde CEO also sees the digitization of the economy as a threat to many jobs. "Everything that is not value-generating in a process will disappear at the end of the day."

The gas producer would therefore have to adapt to new business models and, in addition, be behind the competition in terms of profitability. There is therefore a need for action. Sales in the first nine months fell by 4.3 percent to almost 13 billion euros. The operating result fell by a good two percent to 3.07 billion euros.

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The slump in plant engineering was particularly striking with a drop in sales of 13 percent to EUR 1.7 billion. Still, Linde does not show a bad result in all, stressed Büchele.

The outgoing Linde CEO did not want to speculate as to whether the merger with the US company Praxair might come back into the agenda. On his personal plans after the end of his contract on April 30, 2017, he said: "I will not disappear anywhere in the sinking." In the industry, it is speculated that the late Siegfried Russwurm, .