Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC Sells 2,581 Shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN)

Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC lessened its stake in shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN - Free Report) by 5.5% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 44,285 shares of the basic materials company's stock after selling 2,581 shares during the quarter. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC's holdings in Linde were worth $20,621,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Linde in the 4th quarter valued at $2,901,853,000. Freemont Capital Pte Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Linde in the 4th quarter valued at $2,128,233,000. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in shares of Linde by 58,312.0% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,415,935 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $1,590,596,000 after acquiring an additional 3,410,087 shares during the period. Capital World Investors increased its stake in Linde by 34.4% in the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 11,547,765 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $4,834,631,000 after buying an additional 2,957,604 shares during the period. Finally, Castlekeep Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Linde in the 4th quarter valued at $468,360,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have issued reports on LIN. Citigroup raised shares of Linde from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $500.00 to $535.00 in a research note on Monday, June 30th. Argus upgraded shares of Linde to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 8th. Royal Bank Of Canada assumed coverage on shares of Linde in a report on Friday, June 13th. They issued an "outperform" rating and a $576.00 target price on the stock. UBS Group upped their price objective 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, Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Linde to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, April 3rd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Linde presently has a consensus rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $518.80.

Linde Stock Up 0.4%

NASDAQ LIN traded up $1.97 during trading on Friday, reaching $463.26. 714,578 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,967,314. Linde PLC has a fifty-two week low of $408.65 and a fifty-two week high of $487.49. The firm has a market capitalization of $218.06 billion, a PE ratio of 33.65, a P/E/G ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 0.94, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The company's fifty day simple moving average is $464.40 and its 200-day simple moving average is $453.75.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 1st. The basic materials company reported $3.95 earnings per share 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 analyst estimates 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% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.75 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Linde PLC will post 16.54 EPS for the current year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 18th. Investors of record on Wednesday, June 4th were issued a $1.50 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, June 4th. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.30%. Linde's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 43.57%.

Insider Activity at Linde

In other news, VP Sean Durbin sold 7,261 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $456.42, for a total transaction of $3,314,065.62. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president directly owned 8,151 shares in the company, valued at $3,720,279.42. The trade was a 47.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, VP David P. Strauss sold 1,987 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $457.04, for a total value of $908,138.48. Following the transaction, the vice president owned 22,639 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $10,346,928.56. This trade represents a 8.07% 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 insiders.

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.