Linde India Ltd

Price story Before the numbers, the tape. A stock price moves through four repeating seasons: a flat base (stage 1), an advance (2), a top (3), a decline (4). Where the price sits in that cycle frames everything below.

Linde India Ltd trades at ₹6,228, losing momentum at the top and 3 weeks into that stage. That is −7.9% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 23% of a 52-week range of ₹5,743 to ₹7,809. On relative strength it is currently behind the NIFTY 500 on a trailing-13-week view (14 weeks and counting).

Today the stock is losing momentum at the top — week 3 of stage 3, confirmed. At ₹6,228 it trades −7.9% versus its 200-day average and sits at 23% of its 52-week range (₹5,743–₹7,809).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 10.5 years the stock moved +2,411% while the NIFTY 500 moved +273% — ahead of the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock is currently behind (14 weeks and counting; last ahead the week of 2026-06-19) — the ribbon below is that same metric, week by week.

What would end the trend, mechanically: two Friday closes in a row below the 200-day line. That is the exit rule — no debates.

Story check

Linde India Ltd's story is not scored yet against the markers our research file set on 17 May 2026. Where it sits in its own cycle: MID_CONTRACTION.

Our read, 17 May 2026. A wide-moat gas monopoly with margin re-rating underway — but governance clouds from the RPT saga cap conviction to Bronze.

From the numbers. PE at 37th percentile of 10Y range (ratio 0.86x median of 122.8x). Smoothed YoY PE -19.8% (contracting) but QoQ improving — early expansion setup per pe_pb_cycle. FII holding declining (3.03% Jun 2024 to 2.27% Dec…

From the price. Price stage 3, week 3 — below its 200-day line, relative strength falling.

From the research. A wide-moat gas monopoly with margin re-rating underway — but governance clouds from the RPT saga cap conviction to Bronze.

🚨 Where they disagree. PE at 37th percentile of 10Y range (ratio 0.86x median of 122.8x). Smoothed YoY PE -19.8% (contracting) but QoQ improving — early expansion setup per pe_pb_cycle. FII holding declining (3.03% Jun 2024 to 2.27% Dec 2024); DII stable ~6.5-7.4%. Cycle history: peak 592.1x (Dec 2017) → trough 62.4x (Sep 2020) → expansion peak 156.7x (Jun 2024, EPS +258.7% during cycle) → current re-contraction at 105.5x. EPS inflecting sharply upward in FY26 — earnings-driven multiple compression creating potential re-rating as forward PE normalizes from 106x trailing to ~81x annualized and possibly ~50-65x on FY27 estimated earnings. Quality score 2 (low reliability flag in source data — use with caution).

What is proven. A wide-moat gas monopoly with margin re-rating underway — but governance clouds from the RPT saga cap conviction to Bronze.

What is not proven yet. 89.24% of minority shareholders rejected the ₹417.7 Cr Praxair supply transaction in March 2026 EGM — Linde India now needs to restructure supply chain or find alternative sourcing, with potential short-term disruptions.

The test written in advance. RPT Supply Chain Disruption (Praxair India) — RPT Supply Chain Disruption (Praxair India) by the next result.

The test written in advance. CFO Vacancy and Governance Trust Deficit — CFO Vacancy and Governance Trust Deficit Permanent CFO appointment announcement; Q4 FY26 quality of RPT disclosures by the next result.

The test written in advance. Revenue Lumpiness from PED Project Timing — Revenue Lumpiness from PED Project Timing Q4 FY26 and Q1 FY27 PED order book; gas segment volume disclosures by the next result.

Lever 6 · Order-book wins — BUILDING. Linde plc signed Oct 2024 agreements to de-captivate two large ASUs at Tata Steel Kalinganagar — more than doubling on-site capacity — long-term take-or-pay O2/N2/Ar contracts plus merchant market. ₹425 Cr capex. What proves it keeps working: Odisha ASU Capacity Expansion (Tata Steel De-captivation). It stops working if Supreme Court ruling on SEBI LODR aggregation; quarterly RPT disclosure volumes with Praxair; any SEBI enforcement action.

Lever 1 · Operating leverage — BUILDING. EBITDA margin expanded 490 bps YoY to 36.7% in Q3 FY26 — operating leverage from higher utilization of onsite and merchant gas capacity feeding directly to EBITDA. What proves it keeps working: Operating Leverage Inflection — Gas Segment Margin. It stops working if Supreme Court ruling on SEBI LODR aggregation; quarterly RPT disclosure volumes with Praxair; any SEBI enforcement action.

Lever 2 · Value-added mix — BUILDING. Healthcare volumes growing consistently — medical oxygen, nitrous oxide, and medical gas distribution systems to hospitals form a structural recurring demand base insulated from industrial cycles. What proves it keeps working: Medical Oxygen Demand Secular Growth. It stops working if Supreme Court ruling on SEBI LODR aggregation; quarterly RPT disclosure volumes with Praxair; any SEBI enforcement action.

Sources: our stock research file (17 May 2026) · quarterly results through Jun 26. The story check is re-scored every results season; the record below never changes.

Revenue Revenue is the top line: everything the company billed its customers in the period.

Linde India Ltd reported ₹694 Cr of revenue in the Jun 26 quarter, +21.5% year on year. That is the 4th straight quarter of year-on-year growth. Over 10 years it has compounded at 3.3% a year. The last full year, Mar 26, came in at ₹2,531 Cr. The last four reported quarters add to ₹2,653 Cr.

Why this happened. In October 2024, parent Linde plc announced agreements with Tata Steel to take over two additional large air separation units currently under construction at the Kalinganagar Industrial Complex in Odisha. Transfer was expected in 2025. A long-term supply agreement for oxygen, nitrogen and argon was signed to support Tata Steel's major capacity expansion. Surplus capacity from the new ASUs also serves the local merchant gas market. The ₹425 Cr investment was formally announced in May 2025 by Linde India with Chief Minister inauguration. This is a textbook Linde onsite model: build/acquire at-risk, sell via take-or-pay, generate high recurring EBITDA. New capacity is beginning to show in…

Mar 26 revenue came in at ₹2,531 Cr (+1.9% on the year), capping 10 years at 3.3% compound. The latest quarter (Jun 26) printed ₹694 Cr, +21.5% year on year — the 4th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged +10.6% growth against the decade's 3.3% — the current year is running faster than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew +10.4% over the last 4 quarters against −0.9%/yr over the last 8 — accelerating; TTM profit +22.1% vs +10.4%/yr — accelerating.

Operating margin Operating margin is what is left of every ₹100 of sales after running the business, before interest and tax. It is the cleanest read on pricing power and cost control.

Linde India Ltd's operating margin is 29.0% in the Jun 26 quarter, −5.0 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. That is the widest this company has ever printed on a full-year basis. Across 10 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged 15.0% to 36.0%. The current quarter sits inside that band.

Why this happened. The gas business model carries high fixed costs (plant depreciation, power). As volumes ramp from Odisha ASUs and the growing merchant business, incremental revenue has a significantly higher flow-through to EBITDA. Q3 FY26 demonstrated this clearly: revenue +15.7% drove PAT +68% and EBITDA +33.7%. Pricing discipline across merchant and packaged gas businesses, combined with sustained healthcare volume growth, drives structural margin improvement. OPM trajectory from 8Q context data: 28% (Q1-Q4 FY24) → 35% (Q4 FY25) → 34% (Q1 FY26) → 44% (Q2 FY26, project-mix driven) → 37% (Q3 FY26) — a structural step-change uplift.

The latest quarter's operating margin is 29.0%, −5.0 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 10 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged 15.0%–36.0%, and Mar 26's 36.0% is the top of that band — a record year.

🚨 Why the margin moved: operating margin went −5.6 pp year on year while gross margin went −3.7 pp — the loss came mostly from the gross line: input costs and pricing.

Worth repeating from the valuation section: cheap against its own history on record margins is not the same thing as cheap — a record margin flatters every ratio built on top of it.

Net profit Net profit is what survives every cost, interest and tax — the number EPS, dividends and book value all grow from.

Linde India Ltd earned ₹105 Cr of net profit in the Jun 26 quarter, −1.9% year on year. Full-year Mar 26 profit was ₹549 Cr. The 10-year compound rate is 40.0%. That is 15.1% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned ₹107 Cr.

Jun 26 profit was ₹105 Cr, −1.9% year on year. On the full year, Mar 26 printed ₹549 Cr (+20.7%), and the 10-year compound rate is 40.0%.

🚨 Why profit moved: revenue contributed +21.5% and the margin −5.0 pp — the quarter was revenue-led despite a thinner margin.

Pace comparison, last four quarters: profit +22.8% vs revenue +10.6%. Profit is growing faster than sales — fixed costs are being spread over a bigger base, and each extra rupee of revenue drops more to the bottom line.

Cash flow — the router The P&L says what was earned; the cash-flow statement says what actually arrived. Operating cash flow (CFO) against profit is the cleanest lie detector in the accounts.

Over the last 3 fiscal years 126% of Linde India Ltd's reported profit arrived as operating cash — the cash follows the profit. In Mar 26 that was ₹786 Cr of operating cash against ₹549 Cr of profit. After ₹771 Cr of capital spending, ₹15.0 Cr was left as free cash.

Mar 26: operating cash of ₹786 Cr against reported profit of ₹549 Cr, leaving free cash of ₹15.0 Cr after ₹771 Cr of capital spending. Across the last 3 fiscal years the conversion rate is 126% of profit.

Cash-flow readings here are annual — that is the resolution our series carries, so this section moves once a year.

Why conversion sits at 126%: the cash cycle stretched 86 days between FY20 and Mar 26 — more of each rupee of profit waits inside the cycle before arriving.

Router verdict: the bigger cash user is investment — capital spending ran 3.2× depreciation over three years, so the next section's job is to check what that build-out is buying.

Where the cash goes Working capital is the cash tied up between paying suppliers and getting paid: debtor days (customers owe), inventory days (stock waits), and the cash conversion cycle (the whole loop, in days of sales).

Linde India Ltd's cash conversion cycle runs −217 days in Mar 26, up from −303 days in FY20. Capital spending ran ₹2,099 Cr over the last 3 years. At Mar 26 sales of ₹2,531 Cr each day of that cycle holds about ₹6.9 Cr, so roughly ₹−1,505 Cr sits inside the business at any moment.

Mar 26: debtors at 73 days, inventory at 79 days — roughly 2.6 months of stock waiting to sell; that is where the cash sits while it waits — for a full cycle of −217 days, looser than FY20's −303.

The full loop: cash goes out to suppliers and production on day 0; stock waits 79 days to sell; customers pay about 73 days after that; and suppliers themselves are paid at 370 days — netting out to the −217-day cycle.

In money terms: at Mar 26 sales of ₹2,531 Cr, each day of the cycle holds about ₹6.9 Cr — so the −217-day loop keeps roughly ₹−1,505 Cr sitting inside the business at any moment.

On the investment side: capital spending of ₹2,099 Cr over the last 3 fiscal years against ₹650 Cr of depreciation — the company is building well ahead of wear-and-tear. Capital work-in-progress stands at ₹1,343 Cr (Mar 26) — capacity paid for but not yet earning.

The synthesis: the cash is going into capacity, not disappearing into the cycle — the question becomes whether the new capacity earns.

Return on capital Return on capital employed (ROCE) is the profit the whole business earns on all the money in it — equity and debt together. It is the single best test of whether growth creates value or just size.

Linde India Ltd earns a ROCE of 18% in Mar 26. That is up from a trough of 5% in FY17. Return on invested capital clears the cost of that capital by +0.0 percentage points, so growth here is not yet paying for the capital it uses. The wiring behind it is 21.7% net margin on 0.44× asset turns.

Mar 26 ROCE is 18%, recovered from a FY17 trough of 5% — the full ladder below shows the fall and the climb, undoctored.

🚨 Why the return is what it is — the wiring (Mar 26): 21.7% net margin × 0.44× asset turns × 1.36× balance-sheet leverage ≈ 13.0% on equity. Margin is doing the heavy lifting; leverage is modest — this is an earned return, not a borrowed one.

The capstone test — ROIC − WACC: 12.0% − 12.0% = a +0.0 pp spread. The 12.0% is a standing assumption for the cost of capital in India, not a per-stock estimate — read the sign and the size of the spread, not the decimals. Negative — growth at these returns destroys value until the returns recover.

Debt Debt-to-equity says how much of the business is funded by borrowings. Low is the safe corner; the trend matters as much as the level.

Linde India Ltd carries total debt of ₹79.0 Cr against shareholder equity of ₹4,267 Cr as of Mar 26, a debt-to-equity of 0.02 — effectively unlevered. On the annual view that ratio went from 0.01 in FY23 to 0.02 in FY26. The returns elsewhere on this page are therefore earned rather than borrowed.

Mar 26: total debt of ₹79.0 Cr against shareholder equity of ₹4,267 Cr — a debt-to-equity of 0.02. On the annual view, debt-to-equity went from 0.01 (FY23) to 0.02 (FY26). The returns on this page are earned, not borrowed.

Ownership Who owns the stock, quarter by quarter: promoters (the controlling owners), foreign and domestic institutions, and the public. Steady accumulation by people close to the numbers is a signal; a quiet register is also an answer.

Foreign institutions cut 1.0 points of Linde India Ltd over 8 quarters, the biggest move on the register. That takes foreign institutions to 2.0% of the company. Promoters moved +0.0 points over the same window, to 75.0%. The register is read on the four disclosed classes only; nothing is inferred between filings.

The register over the last two years — Foreign institutions: −1.0 points over 8 quarters to 2.0%; Promoters: +0.0 points over 8 quarters to 75.0%; Domestic institutions: +0.0 points over 8 quarters to 6.8%.

🚨 Why the register moved: foreign institutions drove it (−1.0 points) — distribution into the market’s bid.

Safety line The Z-score estimates how far a company sits from balance-sheet distress — above roughly 3 is safe, below roughly 1.8 is the danger zone. It was built for manufacturers, so it is not applied to banks and lenders.

Linde India Ltd: the Z-score is not available for this stock, so we say so rather than invent one. It is a distance-to-distress estimate from the balance sheet, not a forecast of failure. The debt, cash-flow and return sections above carry the balance-sheet evidence this page does hold, and each of them states its own reporting date.

The safety line in one sentence: the Z-score is not available for this stock, so we say so rather than invent one.

Valuation P/E is the price of ₹1 of annual profit: how many rupees the market pays for each rupee the company earns in a year.

Linde India Ltd trades at 97.2× P/E, near the bottom of its own range — cheaper only 27% of the time. Its long-run median P/E is 121.0×, measured across 9.4 years of weekly readings. This places the multiple against the stock’s own record, and says nothing about what the business is worth.

Today's P/E of 97.2× is near the bottom of its own range — cheaper only 27% of the time, against a long-run median of 121.0× measured over 9.4 years of weekly readings. This is a comparison against the stock's own history — not a claim about what it is worth.

One caveat before moving on: margins are the best this company has ever printed — cheap against its own history on record margins is not the same thing as cheap. If profitability mean-reverts, today's multiple is higher than it looks.

Why the multiple sits where it does: over the past year annual EPS moved +20.7% against a −3.3% price move — earnings outran the price, pushing the multiple DOWN its own range.

The price move, decomposed: over 5y, of the +19.7%/yr price move, ~+18.4%/yr came from earnings growth and ~+1.3 pp from the multiple (expanding). The split is the honest approximate (price return minus earnings growth); it makes the rally itself visible instead of hiding it behind the percentile.

Put together: the multiple is low against its own past, so the story rests on the earnings line underneath it, not the multiple.

Stage: Consistent Every business sits somewhere on a fundamental arc, and this page names the spot before anything else. The last twelve quarters of revenue, profit and EPS growth — plus the return the business earns on its capital — are read as curves: Deteriorating (the curves are falling), Turning around (a trough has just formed and the last few quarters lift off it), Improving (the climb off the trough is sustained), Consistent (steadily positive with healthy returns), Topping out (still high but decelerating from the peak). When the curves genuinely disagree the read is Mixed; too little history is No read. CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is the smooth yearly pace that turns the starting value into the latest one — the fairest way to compare growth across different time spans. Read the columns together: if the 1-year number towers over the 10-year, recent growth is running hotter than the long-run trend. A dash means that window is not held, or the base year was a loss (where a growth rate is not meaningful).

Linde India Ltd reads as consistent on its fundamental arc. Consistent — profit and EPS growth have stayed positive through the window, with ROCE at 17.2% and holding. The read is built from 12 quarters across 4 curves, on full evidence.

Why it matters: steady curves with healthy returns are the compounding setup — the risk is the price, not the business.

4-Factor Sector Score

41.7/100 — rank 4 of 4 in Industrial Gas · 90% evidence confidence

Linde India Ltd scores 41.7 out of 100 against the 4 companies it is compared with in Industrial Gas, ranking 4. Strong business, demanding price: keep it on the quality list, but require either earnings upgrades or valuation compression.

The four contributions add to the total exactly: 18.8 + 17.8 + 5 + 0.1 = 41.7. This is the SAME number shown on the sector comparison — it is computed once, for the whole peer set, and read here.

What would change it: The read weakens if profit growth turns negative or margin improvement reverses while sector-relative strength deteriorates.

Frequently asked questions