Linde plc Plans Quarterly Dividend of $1.39 (NASDAQ:LIN)

Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, October 28th,Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 3rd will be given 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 of this dividend is Tuesday, December 3rd.

Linde has raised its dividend by an average of 9.8% annually over the last three years. Linde has a payout ratio of 32.7% indicating that 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 Stock Performance

NASDAQ:LIN opened at $460.99 on Friday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $467.20 and its 200-day moving average price is $454.38. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The company has a market cap of $219.50 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.00, a P/E/G ratio of 2.95 and a beta of 0.94. Linde has a twelve month low of $396.07 and a twelve month high of $487.49.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The basic materials company reported $3.94 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.89 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $8.36 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.39 billion. Linde had a net margin of 19.33% and a return on equity of 18.16%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.63 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Linde will post 15.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other news, VP John Panikar sold 10,025 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $462.75, for a total value of $4,639,068.75. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 17,584 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,136,996. This trade represents a 36.31 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.60% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Bank of America raised their price objective on shares of Linde from $495.00 to $516.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price objective on shares of Linde from $510.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Mizuho raised their price objective on shares of Linde from $520.00 to $530.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Linde from $430.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Finally, Erste Group Bank restated a “hold” rating on shares of Linde in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price 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.