SBI Securities Co. Ltd. Acquires New Position in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

SBI Securities Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 676 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $283,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Helios Capital Management PTE. Ltd. increased its position in Linde by 85.2% during the fourth quarter. Helios Capital Management PTE. Ltd. now owns 2,500 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,047,000 after purchasing an additional 1,150 shares during the last quarter. Channel Wealth LLC increased its position in Linde by 30.4% during the fourth quarter. Channel Wealth LLC now owns 7,385 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,092,000 after purchasing an additional 1,723 shares during the last quarter. M&T Bank Corp increased its position in Linde by 6.7% during the third quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 79,472 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $37,898,000 after purchasing an additional 5,021 shares during the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB increased its position in Linde by 2.2% during the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 2,145,643 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $898,188,000 after purchasing an additional 46,843 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SYM FINANCIAL Corp acquired a new position in Linde during the fourth quarter worth approximately $625,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Linde

In other Linde news, VP Juergen Nowicki sold 6,782 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $459.62, for a total transaction of $3,117,142.84. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 14,765 shares in the company, valued at $6,786,289.30. This represents a 31.48 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, VP David P. Strauss sold 2,218 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $434.35, for a total transaction of $963,388.30. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 25,926 shares in the company, valued at $11,260,958.10. This trade represents a 7.88 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 14,377 shares of company stock worth $6,567,231 in the last ninety days. 0.60% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Linde Price Performance

Shares of LIN stock opened at $468.25 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $221.44 billion, a PE ratio of 34.40, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.08 and a beta of 0.94. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $443.04 and a 200-day simple moving average of $455.16. The company has a current ratio of 0.89, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39. Linde plc has a twelve month low of $410.69 and a twelve month high of $487.49.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The basic materials company reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.93 by $0.04. Linde had a net margin of 19.89% and a return on equity of 18.71%. Equities research analysts anticipate 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. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 13th will be paid a $1.50 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 13th. This is an increase from Linde’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.39. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.28%. Linde’s dividend payout ratio is 44.09%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

LIN has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Citigroup dropped their price target on shares of Linde from $490.00 to $480.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. TD Cowen raised shares of Linde from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $480.00 to $515.00 in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Finally, Erste Group Bank reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Linde in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Linde presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $501.82.

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.