German industrial gas firm Linde Group said it has sold its forklift business Kion Group to financial investors Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners for €4 billion.
Linde, which bought British rival BOC for £8.2 billion sterling earlier this year to create the world's largest industrial gases producer, said the deal was pending antitrust approval.
The firm said the new owners would honour all guarantees Linde gave workers for plants in summer 2005.
Linde's management struck with workers a deal then to keep forklift plants in Germany in return for longer working hours and cuts of some benefits in a bid to boost profitability.
Linde, which doubled its size through the leveraged BOC deal, wanted to sell its forklift business to become a pure-play gases producer.
Analysts have said they expect Linde to use the proceeds to cut its huge debt. As a result of the BOC deal, its total financial debt rose to €13.13 billion at the end of September from €2.42 billion at the end of 2005.