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Linde manager Reitzle: retired at 72
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Matthias Balk / picture alliance / dpa
The gas company Linde is reorganizing its top management: The Indian-born Sanjiv Lamba will take over as CEO from Steve Angel on March 1, 2022, the company announced.
Angel then succeeds Wolfgang Reitzle as chief controller on the supervisory board.
The change had been speculated for a long time.
Lamba has been responsible for the operational business at Linde since October 2020 and was considered Angel's natural successor.
At the same time, Linde nominated two more managers for the Supervisory Board, ex-Siemens boss Joe Kaeser and the Brazilian agricultural expert Alberto Weisser, who is also on the Bayer Supervisory Board.
Wolfgang Reitzle, the previous chairman of the supervisory board and architect of the merger between Linde and the US company Praxair in 2018, wants to withdraw from the company in the course of moving chairs.
The 72-year-old is giving up his last position at the industrial gas company after around 20 years in the company - on his 73rd birthday he will reach the age limit at Linde.
To retire to Switzerland
Reitzle had internationalized the former traditional company Linde with its management staff, the official company headquarters is now in Dublin.
The Group's board and general meeting meet in London.
With a market value of 139 billion euros, Linde is one of the most important stocks in the leading Dax index, but the majority of the shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
After his retirement, Reitzle could spend his free time abroad in the future.
According to "manager magazin", the entrepreneur recently moved his main residence from Munich to Switzerland.
In the past he had worked as chairman of the board of directors of the Swiss-French cement company LafargeHolcim.
At Contintental, where also heads the supervisory board, Reitzle could withdraw in 2024.
rai / dpa / Reuters
