Fifth Third Bancorp Grows Position in Linde PLC $LIN

Key Points

• Fifth Third Bancorp increased its stake in Linde PLC by 1.5%, owning 298,082 shares valued at approximately $139.85 million as of the latest SEC filing.
• Several large institutional investors also made moves with LIN shares, with hedge funds holding 82.80% of the company's stock.
• Linde's recent earnings report showed an EPS of $4.09, surpassing expectations, and the company also announced a quarterly dividend of $1.50, representing a 1.3% yield.

Fifth Third Bancorp boosted its holdings in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN - Free Report) by 1.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 298,082 shares of the basic materials company's stock after acquiring an additional 4,329 shares during the quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp owned about 0.06% of Linde worth $139,854,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of LIN. Brighton Jones LLC purchased a new position in Linde in the fourth quarter worth $2,752,000. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Linde by 14.1% in the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 777 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $325,000 after buying an additional 96 shares in the last quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG increased its position in shares of Linde by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG now owns 68,460 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $28,662,000 after buying an additional 1,876 shares in the last quarter. Great Valley Advisor Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Linde by 1.9% in the fourth quarter. Great Valley Advisor Group Inc. now owns 4,463 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $1,868,000 after buying an additional 83 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital A Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Linde in the fourth quarter valued at $37,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on LIN. UBS Group raised their price target on Linde from $485.00 to $504.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Linde from $470.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Monday, August 4th. Citigroup upgraded Linde from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and raised their price target for the company from $500.00 to $535.00 in a research report on Monday, June 30th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada assumed coverage on Linde in a research report on Friday, June 13th. They issued an "outperform" rating and a $576.00 price target for the company. Two research 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 stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $519.63.

Insider Buying and Selling at Linde

In other news, Director Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares of Linde stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $473.38, for a total value of $23,815,274.42. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 480,543 shares of the company's stock, valued at $227,479,445.34. The trade was a 9.48% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. 0.70% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Linde Stock Performance

NASDAQ LIN opened at $479.94 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $225.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.14, a P/E/G ratio of 3.15 and a beta of 0.95. Linde PLC has a 1-year low of $408.65 and a 1-year high of $487.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a current ratio of 0.93 and a quick ratio of 0.78. The business's 50-day simple moving average is $473.89 and its 200-day simple moving average is $463.51.

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

Linde Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 18th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 4th were paid a $1.50 dividend. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 4th. Linde's payout ratio is currently 42.67%.

About Linde

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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