HUB Investment Partners LLC Purchases New Shares in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

HUB Investment Partners LLC purchased a new stake in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 536 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $224,000.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Helios Capital Management PTE. Ltd. boosted its stake in Linde by 85.2% in the 4th quarter. Helios Capital Management PTE. Ltd. now owns 2,500 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,047,000 after purchasing an additional 1,150 shares during the period. Channel Wealth LLC boosted its stake in Linde by 30.4% in the 4th quarter. Channel Wealth LLC now owns 7,385 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $3,092,000 after purchasing an additional 1,723 shares during the period. M&T Bank Corp boosted its stake in Linde by 6.7% in the 3rd quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 79,472 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $37,898,000 after purchasing an additional 5,021 shares during the period. Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its stake in Linde by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 2,145,643 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $898,188,000 after purchasing an additional 46,843 shares during the period. Finally, SYM FINANCIAL Corp bought a new stake in Linde in the 4th quarter valued at $625,000. 82.80% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Linde news, Director Robert L. Wood sold 2,900 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $456.26, for a total value of $1,323,154.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 14,013 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,393,571.38. This represents a 17.15 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, VP David P. Strauss sold 2,477 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $469.74, for a total value of $1,163,545.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 1,300 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $610,662. The trade was a 65.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 12,159 shares of company stock valued at $5,603,843 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.60% of the company’s stock.

Linde Price Performance

Linde stock opened at $458.33 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 0.89. Linde plc has a 52 week low of $410.69 and a 52 week high of $487.49. The stock has a market capitalization of $216.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.08 and a beta of 0.94. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $452.96 and a 200-day moving average of $454.35.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The basic materials company reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.93 by $0.04. Linde had a return on equity of 18.71% and a net margin of 19.89%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Linde plc will post 16.54 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Linde Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 27th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 13th will be issued a $1.50 dividend. This represents a $6.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.31%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 13th. This is a boost from Linde’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.39. Linde’s dividend payout ratio is presently 44.09%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the company. TD Cowen upgraded Linde from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $480.00 to $515.00 in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Citigroup cut their target price on Linde from $490.00 to $480.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $501.82.

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.