Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund Has $19.07 Million Stock Holdings in Linde PLC $LIN

Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund cut its stake in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 40,651 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 300 shares during the period. Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund’s holdings in Linde were worth $19,073,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have weighed in on LIN. UBS Group dropped their price objective on Linde from $510.00 to $507.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, October 6th. Citigroup lifted their price target on Linde from $530.00 to $535.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Linde from $470.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 4th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Linde in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have given a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $520.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Linde 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 approximately $227,479,445.34. The trade was a 9.48% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 0.70% of the company’s stock.

Linde Trading Down 0.9%

Shares of LIN stock opened at $453.82 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $212.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.28, a P/E/G ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.93. Linde PLC has a twelve month low of $408.65 and a twelve month high of $487.49. 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’s fifty day simple moving average is $474.45 and its 200 day simple moving average is $464.51.

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, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.03 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $8.50 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.35 billion. Linde had a return on equity of 19.09% and a net margin of 20.20%.Linde’s quarterly revenue was up 2.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company 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, sell-side analysts predict that Linde PLC will post 16.54 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, September 4th were issued a dividend of $1.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 4th. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.3%. Linde’s payout ratio is presently 42.67%.

Linde Company 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.