Linde (LIN)

The Global Benchmark

Linde describes itself as the largest industrial gas company worldwide, and its filings show what dense delivery routes and long contract floors earn when capital stays disciplined. FY2025 revenue was $33,986M. Adjusted EBITDA was $13,351M, a 39.3% margin. Adjusted after-tax return on capital (ROC) was 24.2%, down from 25.9% in FY2024.

Its 10-K lists Air Liquide, Air Products, Messer and Mitsubishi Chemical (through Nippon Sanso) as global and regional competitors, alongside many small local producers, and notes that customers own a significant share of plants themselves. A few large suppliers and a long tail make a concentrated market, not a fragmented commodity one.

Supply mix is where to start. On-site plants, built at or beside a customer and supplying it by pipeline, run on contracts of mostly 10-20 years, the longest 30, with minimum purchase requirements. Linde files no minimum purchase for merchant supply (liquid gas trucked to customer tanks) or packaged supply (cylinders). Its revenue was 24% on-site, 30% merchant and 35% packaged, the highest packaged share filed by the four majors, so its earnings lean on cylinder routes and list-price discipline more than on large on-site contracts.

How the Numbers Read

Linde's return, Air Liquide's recurring ROCE of 11.2% and Air Products' adjusted return on capital of 10.1% sit on three different definitions. The ROCE guide sets the four filers side by side and explains why the gap mixes business with accounting.

Remaining performance obligations (RPO), the revenue customers are contracted to pay from future minimum purchases and fixed-price plant sales, were $62bn at 31 December 2025, against $59bn at 30 September 2024 on the same definition. The figure excludes on-site volumes above the minimums, and about half of the minimum-purchase revenue falls within six years.

The project backlog was $10.0bn at 31 December 2025, against $10.4bn a year earlier. It mostly counts capital still to spend, so it cannot be added to RPO; the backlog vs RPO guide explains why. Linde's 2025 shareholder letter says it is executing more than $7bn of sale-of-gas projects, plants it will own and sell gas from under long contracts, two-thirds of them for clean-energy customers. Adjusted net debt was $21,930M at 31 December 2025, 1.6x adjusted EBITDA.

How You Would Value a Business Like This

The method splits a gases major into two pieces: contracted on-site cash flow, discounted year by year with a value for renewal, and a merchant and packaged piece on a cyclical multiple. The filed supply mix sets the split. On the revenue mix above, most of a business like Linde's would sit in the cyclical piece, so the route density behind that piece matters as much as the contracts.

What to Watch in the Financials

Adjusted after-tax ROC. The series compares year to year on Linde's own definition; a sustained fall would point to mix shift or lower returns on new capital.

Supply mix. A tilt toward merchant without denser routes raises the profit lost when volumes fall. On-site growth under minimum purchases adds to the contracted floor.

Debt against the backlog. A backlog that is mostly capital still to spend adds debt before it adds EBITDA.

Key Risks

Merchant volume. Merchant and packaged carry no minimum purchase. Dense routes spread fixed delivery cost, but they also mean a lost tonne takes roughly half its revenue straight off profit: the primer uses an illustrative 40-60% or more on dense routes for this decremental margin.

Clean-energy customers. The clean-energy projects Linde is building serve a market in which Air Products has cancelled several projects since February 2025. Track execution through capex and ROC.