CHICAGO TRUST Co NA Raises Stock Position in Linde PLC $LIN

Key Points

• CHICAGO TRUST Co NA increased its stake in Linde PLC by 259.7% during the 2nd quarter, owning 4,079 shares worth approximately $1.9 million.
• In recent analyst reports, Citigroup upgraded Linde's rating from "neutral" to "buy," raising its price target from $500 to $535.
• Linde announced a quarterly dividend of $1.50 per share, representing an annualized dividend yield of 1.3%, with a payout ratio of 42.67%.

CHICAGO TRUST Co NA increased its stake in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN - Free Report) by 259.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,079 shares of the basic materials company's stock after purchasing an additional 2,945 shares during the quarter. CHICAGO TRUST Co NA's holdings in Linde were worth $1,914,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. Opal Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Linde by 45.1% during the 2nd quarter. Opal Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 608 shares of the basic materials company's stock worth $285,000 after acquiring an additional 189 shares during the last quarter. Lederer & Associates Investment Counsel CA purchased a new position in shares of Linde during the 2nd quarter worth $1,712,000. Foster Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Linde by 3.8% during the 2nd quarter. Foster Group Inc. now owns 843 shares of the basic materials company's stock worth $396,000 after acquiring an additional 31 shares during the last quarter. KFG Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Linde during the 2nd quarter worth $210,000. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in shares of Linde by 9.3% during the 2nd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 8,015 shares of the basic materials company's stock worth $3,760,000 after acquiring an additional 679 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company's stock.

Insider Activity at Linde

In other news, Director Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the director directly 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 0.70% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

LIN has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Citigroup upgraded shares of Linde from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and raised their price objective for the company from $500.00 to $535.00 in a research report on Monday, June 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Linde from $470.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Monday, August 4th. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Linde from $485.00 to $504.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 9th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada initiated coverage on shares of Linde in a research report on Friday, June 13th. They set an "outperform" rating and a $576.00 price objective on the stock. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Linde has an average rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $519.63.

Linde Stock Performance

LIN opened at $477.76 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.78, a current ratio of 0.93 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. The company has a market cap of $224.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.98, a PEG ratio of 3.16 and a beta of 0.95. Linde PLC has a 52-week low of $408.65 and a 52-week high of $487.49. The firm's fifty day simple moving average is $473.50 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $463.39.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $4.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.03 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $8.50 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.35 billion. Linde had a net margin of 20.20% and a return on equity of 19.09%. The company's revenue was up 2.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $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. Equities analysts anticipate that Linde PLC will post 16.54 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, September 4th were issued a dividend of $1.50 per share. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 4th. Linde's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 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.

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