Empower Advisory Group LLC Purchases 70,218 Shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN)

Empower Advisory Group LLC raised its position in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) by 39.3% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 248,732 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after buying an additional 70,218 shares during the period. Empower Advisory Group LLC’s holdings in Linde were worth $115,819,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in LIN. Brighton Jones LLC bought a new position in shares of Linde during the fourth quarter worth about $2,752,000. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC raised its position in shares of Linde by 14.1% during the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 777 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $325,000 after acquiring an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG raised its position in shares of Linde by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG now owns 68,460 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $28,662,000 after acquiring an additional 1,876 shares during the last quarter. Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC raised its position in shares of Linde by 80.4% during the fourth quarter. Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC now owns 2,253 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $943,000 after acquiring an additional 1,004 shares during the last quarter. Finally, World Investment Advisors grew its stake in Linde by 32.9% during the fourth quarter. World Investment Advisors now owns 1,645 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $689,000 after purchasing an additional 407 shares during the period. 82.80% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

LIN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Royal Bank Of Canada initiated coverage on Linde in a research note on Friday, June 13th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $576.00 target price for the company. UBS Group raised their target price on Linde from $485.00 to $504.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 9th. Argus raised Linde to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Linde from $470.00 to $475.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday. Finally, Citigroup raised Linde from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $500.00 to $535.00 in a research note on Monday, June 30th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Linde currently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $518.30.

Linde Trading Up 1.7%

Shares of Linde stock opened at $467.40 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a quick ratio of 0.78 and a current ratio of 0.93. Linde PLC has a 52 week low of $408.65 and a 52 week high of $487.49. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $467.32 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $458.15. The stock has a market capitalization of $220.01 billion, a PE ratio of 33.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.25 and a beta of 0.92.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $4.09 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.03 by $0.06. Linde had a return on equity of 19.09% and a net margin of 20.20%. The firm had revenue of $8.50 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.35 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.85 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Linde PLC will post 16.54 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 4th will be given a dividend of $1.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 4th. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.3%. Linde’s payout ratio is presently 42.67%.

Insider Activity at Linde

In related news, VP David P. Strauss sold 1,987 shares of Linde stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $457.04, for a total transaction of $908,138.48. Following the transaction, the vice president owned 22,639 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,346,928.56. The trade was a 8.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, VP Sean Durbin sold 7,261 shares of Linde stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $456.42, for a total value of $3,314,065.62. Following the transaction, the vice president directly owned 8,151 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,720,279.42. The trade was a 47.11% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.70% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.