Understand any stock in simple English
Enter a ticker to learn what the company does and how it makes money.
Linde sells industrial gases like oxygen and hydrogen to factories, hospitals, and food companies.
Linde is the world's biggest seller of industrial gases. These are the gases you can't see but factories can't live without: oxygen for steel mills and hospitals, nitrogen to freeze food and keep chips cool during manufacturing, hydrogen for oil refining and clean fuel, argon for welding. The company doesn't really sell the gas itself so much as the whole system around it. It builds the plant right next to the customer's factory, runs it, and pipes the gas in through a contract that often lasts 15 or 20 years. That's the magic of the business: once Linde signs you up, you're basically stuck with it, because building your own gas plant is expensive and annoying. Think of it as the utility that follows you around — you don't think about it, but you can't run without it.
Linde splits into two main parts. The bigger one, gases, is about 85% of revenue — that's the oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and the on-site plants that make them. The smaller part, about 15%, is engineering: Linde designs and builds giant gas plants for other companies, including hydrogen and clean-energy projects. Customers are everywhere — steelmakers, chemical plants, hospitals, food processors, electronics factories like those making chips. Nobody picks Linde because it's cheap; they pick it because the gas has to show up every single day, and Linde has the plants, trucks, and know-how to make that happen. Annual revenue is roughly $33 billion, and it grows slowly but steadily, mostly in line with industrial production.
The company is technically headquartered in the UK, though it was born from a 2018 merger between Germany's Linde AG and US-based Praxair. That deal made it the clear global leader. These days the interesting action is in hydrogen and carbon capture — Linde is building big projects to supply clean hydrogen to factories and trucks, betting that governments and heavy industry will pay up to cut emissions. It also keeps a tight grip on cash. The company throws off billions in free cash flow each year, and it sends a lot of that back to shareholders through dividends and buybacks — it has repurchased roughly 10% of its shares over the past few years — while still spending on new plants and small add-on acquisitions. It's a boring-sounding business that quietly compounds, which is exactly why investors like it.
Saved answer · last researched 11 Oct 2026