SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO is coming. This overlooked industrial company will be a big winner

Elon Musk 's SpaceX is planning the largest stock debut in history. One likely winner from the deal: an overlooked industrial company founded decades before the Wright brothers ever took to the skies. Industrial gases giant Linde has a small but fast-growing business supplying critical gases to the space industry, enabling the propulsion systems of rocket engines and satellites to get them where they need to go. Before leaving Earth, Linde's gases also play a key role in making and testing components on spacecraft. Linde has been in the space game for more than six decades, from NASA's Apollo program to today's Artemis II moon mission. With the advent of the commercial space race, the government is no longer the only game in town. There are many other space companies popping up, but none is bigger than SpaceX. Linde is building a sprawling $100 million plant in Texas near SpaceX to ease delivery. Linde's presence in the space industry is indicative of its behind-the-scenes role in the broader economy. It may not be a household name. But this U.K.-based, nearly $230 billion market capitalization company has been for more than a century supplying gases such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen to many industries. Among their uses, Linde's gases create the fizz in sparkling waters, provide respiratory support to hospital patients, and help lasers etch billions of tiny transistors onto artificial intelligence chips. …