Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) VP Guillermo Bichara Sells 9,350 Shares of Company Stock

Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) VP Guillermo Bichara sold 9,350 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $518.91, for a total value of $4,851,808.50. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president directly owned 22,138 shares in the company, valued at $11,487,629.58. This represents a 29.69% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards.

Linde Stock Up 2.6%

LIN stock opened at $524.74 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $240.90 billion, a PE ratio of 34.87, a P/E/G ratio of 2.98 and a beta of 0.67. Linde PLC has a 12 month low of $387.78 and a 12 month high of $548.20. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $485.35 and a 200 day simple moving average of $493.52. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.50, a current ratio of 0.86 and a quick ratio of 0.72.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $4.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.52 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $9.40 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.16 billion. Linde had a return on equity of 20.32% and a net margin of 19.34%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $4.21 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Linde PLC will post 17.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 17th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 3rd will be issued a dividend of $1.60 per share. This represents a $6.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.2%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, December 3rd. Linde’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 42.52%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

LIN has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Linde from $574.00 to $585.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 30th. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their target price on Linde from $549.00 to $568.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, October 30th. Weiss Ratings cut Linde from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Tuesday. KeyCorp increased their price target on shares of Linde from $542.00 to $545.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, October 30th. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on Linde from $532.00 to $550.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, July 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $553.05.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Linde

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in LIN. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Linde in the 3rd quarter worth $611,786,000. Flossbach Von Storch SE acquired a new position in shares of Linde during the second quarter valued at about $438,525,000. State Street Corp grew its position in Linde by 3.7% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 20,344,181 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $10,558,016,000 after purchasing an additional 719,052 shares during the last quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC increased its stake in Linde by 162.9% during the 1st quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 1,097,110 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $543,951,000 after purchasing an additional 679,738 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC grew its holdings in shares of Linde by 394.8% during the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 629,820 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $312,240,000 after buying an additional 502,520 shares during the last quarter. 82.80% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Linde

Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) is a global industrial gases and engineering company. It produces and distributes atmospheric gases such as oxygen, nitrogen and argon, as well as hydrogen, helium, carbon dioxide and specialty gases. The company serves customers through packaged gases, bulk deliveries, on-site production and pipeline systems.

Linde’s products and services support a broad range of industries, including healthcare, food and beverage, manufacturing, chemicals, energy, refining, electronics and metals.