Sustainable Growth Advisers LP Reduces Position in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN)

Sustainable Growth Advisers LP lowered its stake in shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN - Free Report) by 10.3% in the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 30,663 shares of the basic materials company's stock after selling 3,514 shares during the period. Sustainable Growth Advisers LP's holdings in Linde were worth $14,278,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Nationale Nederlanden Powszechne Towarzystwo Emerytalne S.A. lifted its stake in Linde by 44.8% in the first quarter. Nationale Nederlanden Powszechne Towarzystwo Emerytalne S.A. now owns 79,822 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $37,168,000 after purchasing an additional 24,709 shares during the last quarter. Alecta Tjanstepension Omsesidigt purchased a new position in Linde in the first quarter valued at approximately $233,405,000. Guidance Capital Inc. lifted its stake in Linde by 8.5% in the first quarter. Guidance Capital Inc. now owns 2,236 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $1,017,000 after purchasing an additional 176 shares during the last quarter. Hartford Funds Management Co LLC lifted its stake in Linde by 32.1% in the first quarter. Hartford Funds Management Co LLC now owns 1,880 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $875,000 after purchasing an additional 457 shares during the last quarter. Finally, PFG Advisors lifted its stake in Linde by 34.1% in the first quarter. PFG Advisors now owns 4,597 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $2,141,000 after purchasing an additional 1,168 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company's stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Linde

In other Linde news, VP David P. Strauss sold 1,987 shares of Linde stock in a transaction on Friday, May 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $457.04, for a total value of $908,138.48. Following the sale, the vice president directly owned 22,639 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,346,928.56. The trade was a 8.07% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, VP Sean Durbin sold 7,261 shares of Linde stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $456.42, for a total transaction of $3,314,065.62. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president owned 8,151 shares in the company, 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 owned by company insiders.

Linde Stock Performance

LIN stock traded down $2.03 on Wednesday, hitting $469.99. The company had a trading volume of 1,193,446 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,978,340. Linde PLC has a 12-month low of $408.65 and a 12-month high of $487.49. 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 stock's 50-day simple moving average is $465.88 and its 200 day simple moving average is $455.22. The stock has a market cap of $221.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.13, a P/E/G ratio of 3.33 and a beta of 0.96.

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

Linde Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed 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 was Wednesday, June 4th. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.28%. Linde's payout ratio is 43.57%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Citigroup raised shares of Linde from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and boosted their target price for the company from $500.00 to $535.00 in a report on Monday, June 30th. 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 report on Wednesday, July 9th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Linde to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Thursday, April 3rd. Argus raised shares of Linde to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada initiated coverage on shares of Linde in a report on Friday, June 13th. They issued an "outperform" rating and a $576.00 price target on the stock. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Linde currently has a consensus rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $518.80.

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.