Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call October 31, 2024 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Juan Pelaez - Head, IR
Sanjiv Lamba - CEO
Matt White - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Mike Leithead - Barclays
Vincent Andrews - Morgan Stanley
Duffy Fischer - Goldman Sachs
David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank
Peter Clark - Bernstein
Jeff Zekauskas - JPMorgan
Steve Byrne - Bank of America
Stephen Richardson - Evercore ISI
Mike Sison - Wells Fargo
John McNulty - BMO Capital Markets
Patrick Cunningham - Citi
Josh Spector - UBS
Kevin McCarthy - Vertical Research Partners
John Roberts - Mizuho
Dan Rizzo - Jefferies
Tony Jones - Redburn Atlantic
Mike Harrison - Seaport Research Partners

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Linde Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Teleconference and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode and please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session.

And I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Juan Pelaez, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Juan Pelaez

Abby, thank you. Good morning everyone and thank you for attending our 2024 third quarter earnings call and webcast. I'm Juan Pelaez, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined this morning by Sanjiv Lamba, Chief Executive Officer; and Matt White, Chief Financial Officer.

Today's presentation materials are available on our website at linde.com in the Investors section. Please read the forward-looking statement disclosure on Page 2 of the supplement, and note that it applies to all statements made during this teleconference. The reconciliations of the adjusted numbers are in the appendix to this presentation.

Sanjiv will provide some opening remarks, and then Matt will give an update on Linde's third quarter financial performance and outlook. After which we will wrap up the Q&A.

Let me now turn the call over to Sanjiv.

Sanjiv Lamba

Thanks Juan and good morning everyone. Third quarter results once again demonstrated the resilience and resolve of Linde employees across the globe. EPS, ROC and operating margin reached new highs despite challenging economic conditions in most countries. But frankly, none of this came as a surprise. Some of you may recall that we anticipated sluggish industrial activity this quarter and it played out as expected.

Looking ahead, I have concerns regarding continued economic weakness. So, we've taken a series of proactive actions, including targeted cost reductions. Matt will provide more details on this charge, and it affects approximately 2% of the workforce globally and is expected to be mostly completed in the next few months. In light of these actions, it may be helpful to provide you additional color on the end market trends, which you can find on Slide 3.