Linde PLC $LIN Shares Purchased by USA Financial Formulas

USA Financial Formulas boosted its holdings in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) by 18.4% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 572 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after purchasing an additional 89 shares during the quarter. USA Financial Formulas’ holdings in Linde were worth $268,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Brighton Jones LLC bought a new stake in Linde in the fourth quarter valued at $2,752,000. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC lifted its stake in Linde by 14.1% in the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 777 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $325,000 after buying an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Merit Financial Group LLC lifted its stake in Linde by 19.4% in the first quarter. Merit Financial Group LLC now owns 11,896 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $5,539,000 after buying an additional 1,937 shares during the last quarter. ST Germain D J Co. Inc. lifted its stake in Linde by 2.1% in the first quarter. ST Germain D J Co. Inc. now owns 1,784 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $831,000 after buying an additional 36 shares during the last quarter. Finally, RFG Advisory LLC bought a new stake in Linde in the first quarter valued at $401,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.80% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

LIN has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Citigroup upgraded Linde from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $500.00 to $535.00 in a research note on Monday, June 30th. Royal Bank Of Canada initiated coverage on Linde in a research note on Friday, June 13th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $576.00 target price on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective 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. Finally, UBS Group lifted 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. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Linde currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $519.63.

Insider Transactions at Linde

In related news, Director Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares of Linde stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $473.38, for a total transaction of $23,815,274.42. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 480,543 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $227,479,445.34. The trade was a 9.48% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.70% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Linde Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ LIN opened at $466.81 on Thursday. Linde PLC has a fifty-two week low of $408.65 and a fifty-two week high of $487.49. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $474.74 and its 200 day simple moving average is $464.21. The company has a quick ratio of 0.78, a current ratio of 0.93 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. The stock has a market cap of $218.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.20, a P/E/G ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 0.94.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $4.09 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.03 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $8.50 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.35 billion. Linde had a net margin of 20.20% and a return on equity of 19.09%. The company’s revenue was up 2.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.85 earnings per share. Linde has set its FY 2025 guidance at 16.300-16.500 EPS. Q3 2025 guidance at 4.100-4.20 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Linde PLC will post 16.54 EPS for the current year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 4th were issued a dividend of $1.50 per share. This represents a $6.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 4th. Linde’s payout ratio is presently 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.