Maryland State Retirement & Pension System Grows Position in Linde PLC $LIN

Maryland State Retirement & Pension System lifted its holdings in shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) by 1.6% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 22,825 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after acquiring an additional 356 shares during the quarter. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System’s holdings in Linde were worth $10,709,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of LIN. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its stake in Linde by 5.0% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 9,600,297 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $4,470,284,000 after acquiring an additional 453,108 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its stake in Linde by 18.6% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 7,542,991 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,511,751,000 after acquiring an additional 1,182,157 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC acquired a new position in Linde during the 1st quarter worth about $2,097,793,000. Invesco Ltd. lifted its stake in Linde by 1.1% during the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,859,539 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,797,156,000 after acquiring an additional 40,931 shares in the last quarter. Finally, WCM Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in Linde by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC now owns 3,339,761 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,533,318,000 after acquiring an additional 9,870 shares in the last quarter. 82.80% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Linde

In other news, Director Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $473.38, for a total value of $23,815,274.42. Following the transaction, the director owned 480,543 shares in the company, valued at approximately $227,479,445.34. This represents a 9.48% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 0.70% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on LIN shares. Royal Bank Of Canada started coverage on Linde in a research note on Friday, June 13th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $576.00 target price on the stock. Citigroup increased their target price on Linde from $530.00 to $535.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Linde in a research note on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Linde from $470.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, August 4th. Finally, UBS Group reduced their price target on Linde from $510.00 to $507.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Linde has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $520.00.

Linde Trading Down 0.5%

LIN opened at $467.83 on Thursday. Linde PLC has a one year low of $408.65 and a one year high of $487.49. The company has a market cap of $219.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.27, a PEG ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a quick ratio of 0.78 and a current ratio of 0.93. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $474.60 and its 200-day simple moving average is $464.52.

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

Linde Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 18th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 4th were issued a $1.50 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 4th. This represents a $6.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.3%. Linde’s dividend payout ratio is presently 42.67%.

Linde Profile

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.