LS Investment Advisors LLC Sells 610 Shares of Linde PLC $LIN

Key Points

• LS Investment Advisors LLC reduced its stake in Linde PLC by 2.9%, selling 610 shares, leaving them with 20,779 shares valued at $9,749,000.
• Several institutional investors, including Nuveen LLC and GAMMA Investing LLC, significantly increased their holdings in Linde during the first quarter.
• Linde PLC recently reported earnings of $4.09 per share, surpassing estimates, and declared a quarterly dividend of $1.50 per share, representing an annual yield of 1.3%.

LS Investment Advisors LLC decreased its stake in shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN - Free Report) by 2.9% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 20,779 shares of the basic materials company's stock after selling 610 shares during the quarter. Linde comprises about 1.4% of LS Investment Advisors LLC's portfolio, making the stock its 26th largest holding. LS Investment Advisors LLC's holdings in Linde were worth $9,749,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of LIN. Nuveen LLC bought a new position in shares of Linde during the first quarter worth $2,097,793,000. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its stake in Linde by 58,312.0% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,415,935 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $1,590,596,000 after purchasing an additional 3,410,087 shares in the last quarter. Deutsche Bank AG raised its stake in Linde by 172.4% during the first quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 2,407,637 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $1,121,092,000 after purchasing an additional 1,523,702 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in Linde by 18.6% during the first quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 7,542,991 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $3,511,751,000 after purchasing an additional 1,182,157 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Alecta Tjanstepension Omsesidigt purchased a new stake in Linde during the first quarter valued at $233,405,000. Institutional investors own 82.80% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on LIN shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Linde from $470.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Monday, August 4th. Citigroup raised shares of Linde from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and upped their price target for the company from $500.00 to $535.00 in a research note on Monday, June 30th. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Linde from $485.00 to $504.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 9th. Finally, 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 price target on the stock. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Linde has a consensus rating of "Buy" and a consensus price target of $519.63.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares of the firm's 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 transaction, the director owned 480,543 shares of the company's stock, valued at $227,479,445.34. This trade represents a 9.48% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.70% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Linde Trading Down 0.1%

Shares of LIN opened at $473.78 on Friday. Linde PLC has a twelve month low of $408.65 and a twelve month high of $487.49. The company has a market cap of $222.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.70, a P/E/G ratio of 3.13 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a current ratio of 0.93, a quick ratio of 0.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. The company's fifty day simple moving average is $474.43 and its 200-day simple moving average is $463.66.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results 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. Linde had a net margin of 20.20% and a return on equity of 19.09%. The business had revenue of $8.50 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.35 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.85 earnings per share. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 2.3% on a year-over-year basis. Linde has set its FY 2025 guidance at 16.300-16.500 EPS. Q3 2025 guidance at 4.100-4.20 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Linde PLC will post 16.54 EPS for the current year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 4th were paid a $1.50 dividend. 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 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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