Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $1.50

Key Points

• Linde PLC has declared a quarterly dividend of $1.50 per share, with an annualized dividend amounting to $6.00 and a yield of 1.29%.
• The company maintains a payout ratio of 33.5% , indicating strong earnings coverage for its dividends, with expected earnings of $18.02 per share next year.
• Linde's shares traded down 1.1% to $466.23, while analysts have issued mostly positive ratings with an average target price of $518.80.

Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN - Get Free Report) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, July 30th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Thursday, September 4th will be given a dividend of 1.50 per share by the basic materials company on Thursday, September 18th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a yield of 1.3%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 4th.

Linde has a payout ratio of 33.5% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Linde to earn $18.02 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $6.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 33.3%.

Linde Stock Performance

NASDAQ LIN traded up $0.96 on Friday, hitting $461.22. 1,140,387 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,120,509. The company has a market capitalization of $217.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.48, a P/E/G ratio of 3.29 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 business's 50 day moving average price is $467.14 and its 200-day moving average price is $457.33. Linde has a 52-week low of $408.65 and a 52-week high of $487.49.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN - Get Free Report) last released 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. The company had revenue of $8.50 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.35 billion. Linde had a return on equity of 18.95% and a net margin of 20.02%. Linde's quarterly revenue was up 2.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.85 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Linde will post 16.54 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

LIN has been the topic of several analyst reports. UBS Group lifted their target price on Linde from $485.00 to $504.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 9th. Argus raised Linde to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised Linde to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Thursday, April 3rd. Citigroup raised 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 report on Monday, June 30th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada began coverage on Linde in a report 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 hold rating, nine have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock 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.