Linde: Stacked deck

Companies aren’t democracies. Putting every decision to share-holder vote would be a recipe for gridlock. But shareholders should have a say over the bigger changes in direction. The prob-lem for shareholders in German companies is that even the larg-est decisions are left to the su-pervisory board. And supervi-sory boards are often stacked against minority holders. Take Linde. The German conglomerate has offered E11bn in cash for BOC, the UK-based industrial gas company. If the bid succeeds, i...