Verdence Capital Advisors LLC Has $1.41 Million Position in Linde PLC $LIN

Verdence Capital Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) by 137.9% during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 2,995 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,736 shares during the period. Verdence Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Linde were worth $1,405,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Bartlett & CO. Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Linde by 1.3% during the 2nd quarter. Bartlett & CO. Wealth Management LLC now owns 249,742 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $117,174,000 after acquiring an additional 3,230 shares in the last quarter. Truist Financial Corp grew its holdings in shares of Linde by 75.0% during the 1st quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 193,563 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $90,131,000 after acquiring an additional 82,952 shares in the last quarter. Freedom Day Solutions LLC grew its holdings in shares of Linde by 9.6% during the 1st quarter. Freedom Day Solutions LLC now owns 6,102 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $2,841,000 after acquiring an additional 535 shares in the last quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. grew its holdings in shares of Linde by 25.9% during the 1st quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 23,558 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $10,970,000 after acquiring an additional 4,839 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Exane Asset Management purchased a new position in shares of Linde during the 1st quarter valued at $295,000. 82.80% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently commented on LIN shares. UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of Linde from $510.00 to $507.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, October 6th. 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. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of Linde from $530.00 to $535.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 6th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Linde in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have issued a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $520.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares of Linde stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 7th. The shares were 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 $227,479,445.34. This trade represents a 9.48% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.70% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Linde Stock Performance

Shares of LIN opened at $456.64 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $214.12 billion, a PE ratio of 32.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.93. Linde PLC has a one year low of $408.65 and a one year high of $487.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a current ratio of 0.93 and a quick ratio of 0.78. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $474.23 and its 200 day moving average price is $464.49.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last announced its earnings results on Friday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $4.09 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.03 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $8.50 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.35 billion. Linde had a net margin of 20.20% and a return on equity of 19.09%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 2.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.85 EPS. 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, analysts expect that Linde PLC will post 16.54 earnings per share for the current year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

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 $1.50 dividend. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.3%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 4th. Linde’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 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.