Linde plc Plans Quarterly Dividend of $1.39 (NASDAQ:LIN)

Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, October 28th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 3rd will be given a dividend of 1.39 per share by the basic materials company on Tuesday, December 17th. This represents a $5.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.21%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, December 3rd.

Linde has increased its dividend payment by an average of 9.8% per year over the last three years. Linde has a payout ratio of 32.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Linde to earn $17.05 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.56 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 32.6%.

Linde Trading Up 0.8 %

NASDAQ:LIN opened at $460.99 on Monday. Linde has a 1 year low of $396.07 and a 1 year high of $487.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.81 and a current ratio of 0.96. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $467.20 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $454.55. The stock has a market capitalization of $219.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.00, a PEG ratio of 2.95 and a beta of 0.94.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The basic materials company reported $3.94 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.89 by $0.05. Linde had a net margin of 19.33% and a return on equity of 18.16%. The business had revenue of $8.36 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.39 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.63 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Linde will post 15.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Linde

In other Linde news, VP John Panikar sold 10,025 shares of the stock in a transaction 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. This represents a 36.31 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.60% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on LIN. Erste Group Bank reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Linde in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on Linde from $477.00 to $507.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on Linde from $510.00 to $515.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Mizuho raised their price target on Linde from $520.00 to $530.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Linde from $430.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $490.75.

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.