Praxair Inc. has announced the sale of the majority of its businesses in Europe to Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corp. for $5.8 billion. The divestiture is connected to Praxair"™s proposed merger with Munich-based Linde AG and is conditioned on the transaction"™s successful completion. According to the Danbury-based Praxair, the assets to be sold include industrial gas businesses that generated $1.5 billion in annual sales during 2017 and employ approximately 2,500 people across Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.