Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Acquires New Holdings in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System acquired a new stake in shares of Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 29,300 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,034,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Linde by 1.9% in the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 19,984,243 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $7,103,185,000 after acquiring an additional 372,780 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in Linde by 2.6% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 13,919,350 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $5,182,870,000 after acquiring an additional 354,506 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in Linde by 6.0% in the 3rd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 8,587,362 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $2,315,068,000 after acquiring an additional 488,655 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Linde in the 4th quarter valued at about $2,409,138,000. Finally, Nuveen Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in Linde by 7.9% in the 2nd quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 6,508,547 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $2,480,277,000 after acquiring an additional 479,188 shares during the last quarter. 82.80% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Linde news, SVP Oliver Pfann sold 300 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $414.61, for a total transaction of $124,383.00. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other Linde news, SVP Oliver Pfann sold 300 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $414.61, for a total transaction of $124,383.00. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, VP Sean Durbin sold 5,277 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $467.39, for a total value of $2,466,417.03. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 8,151 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,809,695.89. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 78,248 shares of company stock valued at $35,811,988 over the last 90 days. 0.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Linde Stock Down 1.2 %

NASDAQ:LIN traded down $5.59 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $447.41. The stock had a trading volume of 1,976,740 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,267,283. The business’s 50 day moving average is $450.62 and its 200 day moving average is $415.72. Linde plc has a fifty-two week low of $350.60 and a fifty-two week high of $477.71. The stock has a market cap of $215.46 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.51, a PEG ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a current ratio of 0.80 and a quick ratio of 0.67.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The basic materials company reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.49 by $0.10. Linde had a return on equity of 17.06% and a net margin of 18.87%. The firm had revenue of $8.30 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.04 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $3.16 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 5.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Linde plc will post 15.58 earnings per share for the current year.

Linde Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 14th were issued a $1.39 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, March 13th. This represents a $5.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.24%. This is an increase from Linde’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88. Linde’s dividend payout ratio is currently 44.13%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

LIN has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Linde from $480.00 to $540.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday. Mizuho boosted their price objective on Linde from $503.00 to $510.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. UBS Group downgraded Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $482.00 to $510.00 in a report on Wednesday, March 27th. Wolfe Research started coverage on Linde in a report on Friday, March 1st. They set a “peer perform” rating on the stock. Finally, Seaport Res Ptn downgraded Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, January 8th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Linde has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $456.79.

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.