Linde AG corporate communications head Uwe Wolfinger has refused to comment on whether international financial investors showed interest in buying his company’s forklift division last year.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported two separate private equity companies made offers for Linde’s forklift business but chief executive Wolfgang Reitzle rejected them.

"This is not a big topic and we are not commenting on that," Wolfinger said.

"But I can say there are no plans for Linde to sell either of the two business segments (gas and engineering, and materials handling)," he said.

The materials handling segment increased revenues by 13 per cent to EUR2.4 billion (USD3.06 billion), from January to September 2004.

Wolfinger dismissed the German newspaper’s source as "rumours on the stock market".