French industrial gases producer Air Liquide – currently the world market’s second largest player behind Linde of Germany – has announced it will buy US rival Airgas for $13.4 billion. Air Liquide, which has worldwide sales of $20.4 billion is four times larger than Airgas, which derives nearly its $5.3 billion revenue from the US market. The successful bid, which offers $10.3 billion for Airgas’s equity and foresees assumption of around $3.1 billion in debt, follows a $5.9 billion hostile takeover attempt of Airgas by Air Products in 2011. A judge in the US state of Delaware foiled that plan by upholding the Pennsylvania-based player’s poison-pill defense.

If approved by Airgas shareholders and antitrust authorities, the latest deal in an industry regularly awash with takeovers and takeover attempts would create a new global gases giant. Air Liquide would not only become the largest player in the US but also leap-frog Linde’s gases division to become world’s largest player in terms of revenue. It would also be number one in all of its markets. With its $14.1 billion takeover of the UK’s BOC Group in 2006 – still the biggest deal in the industry – Linde swept past its French rival to become the world’s biggest gases supplier. The top two positions are now reversed.

With regional headquarters at Houston, Texas, the European giant already has a significant presence in the US. The merger with Airgas would place more than 40% of its global sales in this market, where it currently employs some 5,000 people at 140 plants. Integrating the Airgas packaged gases portfolio would boost sales of its Gas & Services division by around 30%. The offer represents a premium of 50.6% to Airgas’s one-month average share price before announcement of the transaction and a premium of 20.3% over the US company’s 52-week-high share price.

Air Liquide said the deal would be accretive to earnings from the first year. What’s more, CEO Benoit Potier said combining the two players would also yield more than $300 million of pretax cost, efficiency and volume synergies, most of this within two to three years.

The French group has nailed down bridge financing for the takeover and said it plans to refinance the outlay through a capital increase in the range of €3-4 billion in addition to a combination of US dollar and euro long-term bonds.