Linde is planning to leave the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the Dax.
Linde was once a medium-sized gas manufacturer from Wiesbaden.
Today it is still a gas manufacturer, but long since merged into a global corporation based in Dublin.
After years of complex double listings in New York and Frankfurt and in the S&P 500 and the Dax, the path is now mapped out to concentrate entirely on the American capital market.
Only around 5 percent of the shareholders are German.
In the Dax, Linde was almost alone among the dwarfs, repeatedly bumping into the ceiling of ten percent index weight imposed by the German Stock Exchange.
In America, Linde is far from that.
Even the tenth-placed stock in the S&P 500, Exxon, is worth three times as much as Linde and has an index weight of 1.2 percent.
No one bumps into a ceiling there, and the ceiling doesn't even exist there.
Linde is another warning sign for the German industrial location.
In order to be able to have a say globally, to shape things, to retain talent, German companies must be allowed to grow and raise enough capital.
It's a question of regulation, the reputation of the capital market and the stock exchange, and the design of private old-age provision.
Stock exchange is not a casino, but a place where companies can raise capital for investments in technology, innovation and jobs.
If this works better and easier elsewhere, the location will be left behind in the medium term.