Alliancebernstein L.P. Has $434.34 Million Holdings in Linde PLC $LIN

Key Points

• Alliancebernstein L.P. has reduced its stake in Linde PLC by 15.8%, selling 175,086 shares and now holding approximately $434 million in assets.
• Insider Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares at an average price of $473.38, resulting in a total transaction value of approximately $23.8 million.
• Linde recently posted quarterly earnings of $4.09 per share, surpassing estimates, with revenue of $8.5 billion, reflecting a year-over-year growth of 2.3%.

Alliancebernstein L.P. lowered its stake in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN - Free Report) by 15.8% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 932,775 shares of the basic materials company's stock after selling 175,086 shares during the period. Alliancebernstein L.P. owned 0.20% of Linde worth $434,337,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Truist Financial Corp increased its holdings in shares of Linde by 75.0% in the first quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 193,563 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $90,131,000 after purchasing an additional 82,952 shares in the last quarter. Freedom Day Solutions LLC increased its holdings in shares of Linde by 9.6% in the first quarter. Freedom Day Solutions LLC now owns 6,102 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $2,841,000 after purchasing an additional 535 shares in the last quarter. Exane Asset Management acquired a new stake in shares of Linde in the first quarter valued at approximately $295,000. Hourglass Capital LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Linde in the first quarter valued at approximately $935,000. Finally, Ethos Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Linde during the 1st quarter worth approximately $345,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.80% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Linde from $485.00 to $504.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Linde from $470.00 to $475.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research report on Monday, August 4th. Royal Bank Of Canada assumed coverage on shares of Linde in a research report on Friday, June 13th. They set an "outperform" rating and a $576.00 price target for the company. Finally, Citigroup upgraded shares of Linde from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $500.00 to $535.00 in a research report on Monday, June 30th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have given a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Buy" and a consensus price target of $519.63.

Insider Transactions at Linde

In other news, Director Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $473.38, for a total value of $23,815,274.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 480,543 shares in the company, valued at $227,479,445.34. This represents a 9.48% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.70% of the company's stock.

Linde Trading Down 0.6%

NASDAQ LIN traded down $2.87 during trading on Friday, reaching $469.52. 1,066,218 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,493,888. The firm has a market cap of $220.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 0.95. The stock's 50-day moving average price is $472.43 and its 200 day moving average price is $462.36. The company has a quick ratio of 0.78, a current ratio of 0.93 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. Linde PLC has a fifty-two week low of $408.65 and a fifty-two week high of $487.49.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $4.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $4.03 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $8.50 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $8.35 billion. Linde had a net margin of 20.20% and a return on equity of 19.09%. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 2.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $3.85 earnings per share. Linde has set its FY 2025 guidance at 16.300-16.500 EPS. Q3 2025 guidance at 4.100-4.20 EPS. Analysts predict that Linde PLC will post 16.54 EPS for the current year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 4th will be issued a dividend of $1.50 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 4th. This represents a $6.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.3%. Linde's payout ratio is currently 42.67%.

Linde Company Profile

Linde plc operates as an industrial gas company in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and South Pacific. It offers atmospheric gases, including oxygen, nitrogen, argon, and rare gases; and process gases, such as carbon dioxide, helium, hydrogen, electronic gases, specialty gases, and acetylene.