Linde: how the business works

• Gases from the air

  Oxygen, nitrogen and argon, plus rare gases such as krypton, neon and xenon. Linde's 10-K calls these atmospheric gases.

• Process gases

  Hydrogen, helium, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, electronic and specialty gases, and acetylene.

• On-site supply

  A plant at or next to a large customer, often linked by pipeline, under contracts that typically run 10 to 20 years with minimum purchase requirements. On-site sales were $8,083 million in FY2025.

• Merchant supply

  Gas delivered as liquid by tanker truck, usually under 3- to 7-year contracts. Merchant sales were $10,159 million in FY2025.

• Packaged gases

  Gas in cylinders, sold under 1- to 3-year contracts or purchase orders. At $11,853 million in FY2025, this was Linde's largest supply method.

• Engineering

  Designs and builds air separation, hydrogen and synthesis gas, olefin and natural gas plants. Sales to outside customers were $2,250 million in FY2025; plants built for Linde's own gas segments, $2,702 million, are not counted as Engineering sales.

1. 1Customers paid Linde $33,986 million of sales in FY2025.
2. 2Making and delivering the gases cost $17,389 million before depreciation; Linde's 10-K says energy is its single largest cost.
3. 3Depreciation and amortization took $3,763 million and selling and administration $3,433 million.
4. 4Research of $147 million, charges of $273 million and other expense of $58 million left operating profit of $8,923 million.
5. 5A $229 million pension credit and $150 million from part-owned companies came in; interest of $255 million, tax of $1,989 million and $160 million for minority owners went out, leaving $6,898 million of net income.

• Energy

  Linde's 10-K calls energy its single largest cost item. Contracts pass much of it to customers through pricing formulas, surcharges, cost pass-through and tolling.

• Plants and pipelines

  Property, plant and equipment, after depreciation, was $28,260 million on Dec 31, 2025. Capital spending was $5,261 million in FY2025, about 60% of it in the Americas.

• People

  65,177 employees on Dec 31, 2025, down from 66,323 at the end of 2023.

• Borrowing

  Linde says its global effective borrowing rate was about 2.3% in 2025. Much of its long-term debt is euro notes.

• L'Air Liquide S.A.

  Named in Linde's FY2025 10-K as an international competitor in industrial gases.

• Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

  Named in Linde's FY2025 10-K as an international competitor in industrial gases.

• Messer Group GmbH

  Named in Linde's FY2025 10-K as an international competitor in industrial gases.

• Taiyo Nippon Sanso (Mitsubishi Chemical)

  Linde's FY2025 10-K names Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, through Taiyo Nippon Sanso, as a competitor.

• Sale-of-gas backlog

  Working

  $7.9B, Sep 30, 2026

  The estimated capital cost of large plants Linde is building to supply customers under contract. It was $7.0 billion at Q1 FY2025 and $7.3 billion at Dec 31, 2025; Linde said a US electronics supply contract lifted it to a record $8.1 billion in Q2 FY2026.

  Status: Working, on track against what the company said.

• Americas pricing

  Working

  $3,601M sales, Q3 FY2026

  Up 11% from a recast $3,253 million a year earlier, with underlying sales up 9% (price 6%, volume 3%). Americas operating profit was $1,263 million, a 35.1% margin as Linde states it.

  Status: Working, on track against what the company said.

• Asia Pacific volumes

  Working

  +8% underlying sales, Q3 FY2026

  Price rose 3% and volume 5%, which Linde ties to electronics, chemicals and energy, and project start-ups. APAC sales were $1,950 million.

  Status: Working, on track against what the company said.

• Europe, Middle East and Africa

  Mixed

  +3% underlying sales, Q3 FY2026

  EMEA sales were $2,327 million and operating profit $817 million, against $2,178 million and $781 million a year earlier.

  Status: Mixed, partly on track.

• Engineering

  Mixed

  $2.9B third-party backlog, Sep 30, 2026

  Down from $3.3 billion at the end of 2024. Order intake was $499 million in Q3 FY2026, and Linde's FY2025 severance charges of $308 million were largely in Engineering.

  Status: Mixed, partly on track.

Status compares progress with what the company itself said it would do: Working = on track against what the company said; Mixed = partly on track; Behind = behind the company's own plan; New = recently announced; Early = too early to judge.

• Official (GAAP): Diluted EPS, FY2025

  $14.61

  Company's own measure: Adjusted diluted EPS, FY2025

  $16.46

  Adds back $1.43 a share of Linde AG merger accounting effects and $0.42 of cost reduction and other charges.

• Official (GAAP): Operating profit, FY2025

  $8.9B

  Company's own measure: Adjusted operating profit, FY2025

  $10.1B

  Leaves out $941 million of Linde AG merger accounting effects and $273 million of cost reduction and other charges. It equals the total of segment operating profit.

• Official (GAAP): Operating profit, FY2025

  $8.9B

  Company's own measure: Adjusted EBITDA, FY2025

  $13.4B

  Linde's EBITDA (what this means)EBITDAOperating profit before wear-and-tear charges (depreciation and amortization). As a margin: per $100 of sales. ($12,836 million) adds back interest, tax, depreciation and amortization but removes the pension credit and includes income from part-owned companies; the adjusted figure also leaves out charges. EBITDA in this page's tables is operating profit plus depreciation and amortization: $12,686 million.

• Official (GAAP): Reported after-tax return on capital, FY2025

  12.1%

  Company's own measure: Adjusted after-tax return on capital, FY2025

  24.2%

  Both are Linde's own calculations over the four quarters to Q4 FY2025; the adjusted one leaves out merger accounting effects and charges.

• Official (GAAP): Diluted EPS, Q3 FY2026

  $3.66

  Company's own measure: Adjusted diluted EPS, Q3 FY2026

  $4.59

  Leaves out $425 million of cost reduction and other charges, including $183 million of non-cash charges mainly for U.S. homecare, and merger accounting effects.

• Official (GAAP): Operating margin, Q3 FY2026

  22.9%

  Company's own measure: Adjusted operating margin, Q3 FY2026

  29.4%

  Adjusted operating profit was $2,763 million against GAAP operating profit of $2,150 million.

• Official (GAAP): Remaining performance obligations, Dec 31, 2025

  $62.0B

  Company's own measure: Sale-of-gas backlog, Sep 30, 2026

  $7.9B

  Linde defines the backlog as the total estimated capital cost of large plants under construction to supply gas under contract. Remaining performance obligations are future minimum purchases under on-site contracts plus Engineering plant sales, at an earlier date.

These are the company's own measures, defined by the company. They are not comparable across companies, and they are not added together. Each sits beside the nearest official (GAAP) figure.

Learn: Non-GAAP measures: what a company's "adjusted" numbers leave out

• Net debt of $22,755 million is total debt of $26,702 million minus cash of $3,947 million (Cityfort calculation from the Q3 FY2026 10-Q). Linde's FY2025 10-K states net debt of $21,933 million on Dec 31, 2025.
• Linde says net debt rose $5,160 million in 2025, including about $2.4 billion of currency translation; much of its long-term debt is euro notes.
• Linde issued €1.75 billion of notes in November 2025 and €1.6 billion in May 2026.
• Revolving credit facilities of $5.0 billion (to Dec 7, 2027) and $1.5 billion (to Dec 2, 2026) were undrawn on Sep 30, 2026 and have no financial maintenance covenants.
• Separate from debt, Linde recorded contingent liabilities of $1.1 billion for RusChemAlliance's advance payment claims and $0.7 billion for Gazprom's Amur claim and other Amur plant contract matters on Sep 30, 2026. Letters of credit, bank guarantees and surety bonds were about $3.5 billion on Dec 31, 2025.
• Interest cover of 35.0 is FY2025 operating profit of $8,923 million divided by net interest expense of $255 million (Cityfort calculation from FY2025 10-K). Debt to equity uses Linde plc shareholders' equity of $39,422 million.

Officers and directors (as a group), shares

0.3%

From the company's proxy statement (DEF 14A), later Schedule 13G filings and the share counts on its latest annual or quarterly report. Each holder row shows the date of its own filing.

Learn: How to read a proxy statement (DEF 14A): Nvidia's 2026 proxy · Form 4 insider filings: who files, the codes and the footnotes · Rule 10b5-1 trading plans: how insiders pre-schedule their trades

Auditor

PricewaterhouseCoopers, since 2019

Auditor changes

None in the period covered

Audit qualifications

None reported

Related-party dealings

Linde's 2026 proxy says any related party transaction by an executive officer or director must be pre-approved by a committee of independent and disinterested directors, with the Audit Committee reviewing conflicts of interest. This page lists no transactions under that policy.

Credit rating

S&P Global Ratings and Moody's, as stated in Linde's FY2025 10-K A long-term and A-1 short-term (S&P) / A2 long-term and P-1 short-term (Moody's) (Not stated in the 10-K), Dec 31, 2025

A credit rating describes the company's ability to repay debt. It is not a rating of the share.

Share price

$521.23

Market value (market cap)

$239.3B

P/E

34.6×

Source: LIN historical daily prices, Oct 21 to Nov 5, 2026 (Nasdaq historical table; LIN is listed on Nasdaq; close of Nov 5, 2026: $521.23); Form 10-Q, Q3 FY2026 (quarter ended Sep 30, 2026); Form 10-K, fiscal year 2025 (ended Dec 31, 2025)