Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (APD)

Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., a Delaware corporation founded in 1940, is a world-leading industrial gases company serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets through a portfolio of products and services that improve customers' environmental performance, product quality, and productivity. The company pursues a sustainability-driven two-pillar growth strategy focused on expanding and efficiently operating its core industrial gases business while executing world-scale clean hydrogen projects. Air Products manages operations under five reportable segments: Americas, Asia, Europe, Middle East and India, and Corporate and other.

Its industrial gases business, organized regionally, produces and sells atmospheric gases (oxygen, nitrogen, argon), process gases (hydrogen, helium, CO2, carbon monoxide, syngas), and specialty gases, which constituted over 90% of consolidated sales in fiscal years 2023, 2022, and 2021. The company competes against Air Liquide S.A., Linde plc, and Messer Group GmbH, with competitive advantages derived from pipeline networks. Air Products serves customers across refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, medical, and food industries through on-site supply (large-volume, long-term contracts generating about half of total sales), merchant gases (liquid bulk and packaged gas products), and equipment sales (less than 10% of consolidated sales).

The company is also the world leader in LNG process technology and equipment, and provides turbomachinery, membrane systems, and cryogenic containers through its Rotoflow and Gardner Cryogenics businesses. Air Products is investing in low-carbon "blue hydrogen" (produced from hydrocarbons with carbon capture) and carbon-free "green hydrogen" (from renewable energy), having committed approximately $15 billion in capital toward energy transition projects as of fiscal year-end 2023, with active projects in the United States, Canada, and Saudi Arabia. The company conducts business in approximately 50 countries through subsidiaries, affiliates, and equity-method joint ventures, with major equity investments in foreign industrial gas producers operating in China, India, Italy, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Thailand.

Research and development is conducted at laboratories in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, China, and Saudi Arabia, supported by approximately 625 U.S. patents and 3,300 foreign patents as of fiscal year 2023, though the company does not consider itself materially dependent on any single patent. Air Products is subject to various environmental laws and greenhouse gas emissions regulations across its global operations, including emissions trading systems in the EU, California, China, and South Korea, and reporting requirements under frameworks like the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. As of September 30, 2023, the company employed approximately 23,000 people, with over 90% full-time and 74% located outside the United States; more than 20% of the workforce is covered by collective bargaining agreements.

The company has established diversity goals targeting at least 28% female representation and 30% U.S. minority representation in professional and managerial roles by 2025. Executive leadership includes Chairman, President, and CEO Seifi Ghasemi; Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary Sean D. Major; Senior Vice President and CFO Melissa N. Schaeffer; and Chief Operating Officer Dr. Samir J. Serhan.