MUNICH (Reuters) - An offer to Linde (>> Linde AG) investors to tender their shares to a new merged Linde-Praxair (>> Praxair, Inc.) industrial gases group is likely be launched around September, the chief executives of the German and U.S. companies told Reuters on Friday.

Seventy-five percent of Linde shareholders must tender during what is expected to be a 70-day offer period for the $74 billion merger to go through.

An extraordinary meeting of Praxair shareholders, which must approve the deal by a simple majority, will be set for the end of the offer period, Praxair CEO Steve Angel said in an interview after the deal was approved by both companies' boards.

Asked about German trade union fears that importing Praxair's more efficient practices could cost European jobs, Angel said: "We believe in efficiency but efficiency doesn't have to come at the expense of headcount."

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan and Joern Poltz; Editing by Maria Sheahan)

Stocks treated in this article : Praxair, Inc., Linde AG