Ballentine Partners LLC Grows Position in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Ballentine Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) by 9.4% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 6,709 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after purchasing an additional 579 shares during the quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC’s holdings in Linde were worth $3,199,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. National Bank of Canada FI boosted its position in shares of Linde by 46.9% during the 1st quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 48,211 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $20,593,000 after acquiring an additional 15,393 shares during the last quarter. Vident Advisory LLC grew its stake in shares of Linde by 40.7% in the 1st quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 8,075 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $3,750,000 after buying an additional 2,337 shares during the period. Choate Investment Advisors increased its holdings in shares of Linde by 23.6% during the 1st quarter. Choate Investment Advisors now owns 18,017 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $8,366,000 after buying an additional 3,437 shares during the last quarter. Norden Group LLC acquired a new stake in Linde during the first quarter worth $5,041,000. Finally, Tidal Investments LLC raised its holdings in Linde by 28.7% in the 1st quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 20,071 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $9,319,000 after buying an additional 4,479 shares during the period. 82.80% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

LIN has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Linde from $460.00 to $510.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, August 5th. UBS Group dropped their price objective on Linde from $490.00 to $475.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, July 9th. Bank of America raised their target price on Linde from $495.00 to $516.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, August 5th. BMO Capital Markets reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $477.00 price target on shares of Linde in a research note on Friday, August 30th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Linde from $430.00 to $480.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $484.18.

Insider Activity

In other Linde news, VP John Panikar sold 10,025 shares of Linde stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $462.75, for a total transaction of $4,639,068.75. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 17,584 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,136,996. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.60% of the company’s stock.

Linde Stock Down 0.6 %

Shares of NASDAQ LIN opened at $474.46 on Friday. Linde plc has a 1 year low of $362.33 and a 1 year high of $487.49. The company has a market capitalization of $226.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.05 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.95 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The business has a 50-day moving average of $471.54 and a two-hundred day moving average of $450.99.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 2nd. The basic materials company reported $3.85 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.79 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $8.30 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.30 billion. Linde had a net margin of 19.49% and a return on equity of 17.92%. The company’s revenue was up 1.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.57 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Linde plc will post 15.52 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 18th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 4th were given a dividend of $1.39 per share. This represents a $5.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.17%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, September 4th. Linde’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 42.31%.

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.