In May 2000, Air Products & Chemicals came out with a sobering announcement. Because of opposition from regulators at the US Federal Trade Commission, the Pennsylvania-based industrials group would drop an $11.2bn deal to buy British rival BOC that it had sealed with France’s Air Liquide a year earlier.
In addition to being forced to abandon a crucial strategic move, there was another reason for Air Products and its investors to be gloomy. A strong fluctuation in the dollar/pound exchange rate in previous months meant Air Products would have to take a charge of nearly $300m, mostly from losses on the currency hedge that the company had put in place for the BOC deal in January 2000.
