Flossbach Von Storch SE Increases Position in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN)

Flossbach Von Storch SE grew its stake in shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN - Free Report) by 1.8% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 375,582 shares of the basic materials company's stock after acquiring an additional 6,641 shares during the quarter. Flossbach Von Storch SE owned about 0.08% of Linde worth $174,886,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Personal CFO Solutions LLC raised its stake in Linde by 1.5% during the 1st quarter. Personal CFO Solutions LLC now owns 3,163 shares of the basic materials company's stock worth $1,473,000 after acquiring an additional 47 shares during the period. AlphaStar Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Linde by 9.5% during the 1st quarter. AlphaStar Capital Management LLC now owns 5,262 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $2,450,000 after buying an additional 457 shares in the last quarter. Exane Asset Management purchased a new position in shares of Linde in the first quarter valued at $295,000. May Hill Capital LLC grew its holdings in shares of Linde by 6.6% in the first quarter. May Hill Capital LLC now owns 658 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $306,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares in the last quarter. Finally, NTV Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in Linde by 18.0% during the first quarter. NTV Asset Management LLC now owns 1,402 shares of the basic materials company's stock worth $653,000 after buying an additional 214 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company's stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Linde

In other news, VP David P. Strauss sold 1,987 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Friday, May 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $457.04, for a total transaction of $908,138.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president directly owned 22,639 shares in the company, valued at $10,346,928.56. This trade represents a 8.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, VP Sean Durbin sold 7,261 shares of Linde stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $456.42, for a total value of $3,314,065.62. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president directly owned 8,151 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $3,720,279.42. This represents a 47.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.70% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have commented on LIN. Citigroup raised shares of Linde from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $500.00 to $535.00 in a research note on Monday, June 30th. Royal Bank Of Canada started coverage on shares of Linde in a research note on Friday, June 13th. They set an "outperform" rating and a $576.00 target price for the company. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Linde from $485.00 to $504.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Wednesday. Argus raised shares of Linde to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Linde to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, April 3rd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Linde presently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $518.80.

Linde Stock Down 0.3%

Shares of LIN traded down $1.53 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $468.81. 1,326,438 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,973,086. Linde PLC has a 1-year low of $408.65 and a 1-year high of $487.49. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The company has a market capitalization of $220.68 billion, a PE ratio of 34.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.32 and a beta of 0.96. The business has a 50 day moving average of $463.17 and a 200 day moving average of $452.35.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 1st. The basic materials company reported $3.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.92 by $0.03. The firm had revenue of $8.11 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.24 billion. Linde had a net margin of 20.02% and a return on equity of 18.95%. The company's revenue for the quarter was up .1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $3.75 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Linde PLC will post 16.54 EPS for the current year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 18th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, June 4th were given a dividend of $1.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, June 4th. This represents a $6.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.28%. Linde's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 43.57%.

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.