Q3 2025 - Linde

Continuing the steady progress & re-emphasizing our deep dive comments

Similar to prior quarters, Linde’s performance confirmed the stagnating industrial production growth environment we’ve been seeing for two years now.

As such, any growth in NOPAT has been driven by the combination of pricing/mix, productivity, backlog contribution, bolt-on M&A, and buybacks. These factors have led to a high single-digit percent growth in both cash from operations and NOPAT.

With the recent pullback of 13% since late August/early September and current valuation (based on underlying NOPAT excluding higher depreciation from long-lived growth investments which has started to kick in), we feel investors have discounted Linde’s leading position and strategic growth areas. If there’s a return of some base volume growth (even just tiny), then Linde’s got the levers in place to return to double-digit growth in NOPAT per share.

At the time of writing, shares are down 2% following the Q3 report (published before the bell).