Linde plc operates as an industrial gas and engineering company in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia 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. The company also designs and constructs turnkey process plants for third-party customers, as well as for the gas businesses in various locations, such as olefin, natural gas, air separation, hydrogen, and synthesis gas plants. It serves a range of industries, including healthcare, energy, manufacturing, food, beverage carbonation, fiber-optics, steel making, aerospace, chemicals, and water treatment. The company was founded in 1879 and is based in Woking, the United Kingdom.
Linde Stock Performance
LIN Stock opened at $309.46 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $154.22 billion, a PE ratio of 44.85, a P/E/G ratio of 2.62 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a quick ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The business has a 50 day moving average of $292.90 and a 200-day moving average of $303.79. Linde has a 12-month low of $265.12 and a 12-month high of $352.18.
Linde (NYSE:LIN - Get Rating) last released its earnings results on Thursday, July 28th. The basic materials company reported $3.10 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.99 by $0.11. Linde had a return on equity of 13.41% and a net margin of 10.88%. The company had revenue of $8.50 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.39 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.70 earnings per share. Linde's quarterly revenue was up 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Linde will post 11.9 earnings per share for the current year.
Linde Dividend Announcement
The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 16th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 2nd will be given a dividend of $1.17 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 1st. This represents a $4.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.51%. Linde's dividend payout ratio is currently 67.83%.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades
A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on LIN shares. AlphaValue upgraded Linde to a "reduce" rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 3rd. Evercore ISI raised Linde from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $355.00 target price on the stock in a report on Tuesday, May 31st. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on Linde from $390.00 to $355.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 16th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Linde from €325.00 ($331.63) to €350.00 ($357.14) in a research note on Wednesday, August 10th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus raised Linde from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 10th. They noted that the move was a valuation call. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $367.60.