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. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 3rd will be paid a dividend of 1.39 per share by the basic materials company on Tuesday, December 17th. This represents a $5.56 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.21%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, December 3rd.

Linde has raised its dividend 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. 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 Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ LIN opened at $460.99 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.81. The company has a market cap of $219.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.95 and a beta of 0.94. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $467.20 and its two-hundred day moving average is $454.55. Linde has a 1-year low of $396.07 and a 1-year high of $487.49.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last released its 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 firm had revenue of $8.36 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.39 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.63 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that Linde will post 15.48 EPS 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 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 completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 17,584 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,136,996. This trade represents a 36.31 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.60% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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