Linde Material Handling (UK) has bought all the shares in Linde Creighton Ltd, making it the owner of all eight Linde dealers in Great Britain.

Linde Creighton, a Linde national network company, was acquired for an undisclosed sum. Managing director Rex Hinton, who sold his shares to Linde UK, will continue running the company.

Linde spokesman Detlef Sieverdingbeck says company operations will continue as normal; no Linde Creighton employees will be impacted..

In the past 12 months, Linde UK acquired the outstanding shares in Linde Sterling Ltd (Forkliftaction.com News #519) and Linde Castle Ltd.

"These acquisitions are strong evidence of our commitment to and investment in our UK business," Sieverdingbeck says. "Our dealer network is one of Linde UK's strongest assets and enables us to provide local fast service to customers right across the country. This investment demonstrates how important this network is to our business and shows our ongoing determination to provide the very best in customer service."

Linde Creighton, established in 1993 and headquartered in West Bromwich, Birmingham, employs 285 people. It was Linde UK's national network company in the Midlands area.

Headquartered in Basingstoke, Linde UK has 10 national network companies in the UK. Each Linde network company offers the full range of products and services with online links to Linde facilities at Basingstoke. More than 1,000 factory-trained service engineers operate from the regional centres.