(Reuters) – Linde, the world’s largest industrial gases company, on Thursday raised the lower end of its full-year earnings guidance, citing higher prices, strong volumesand continued productivity initiatives across all segments.
The U.S.-German company, which supplies gases such as oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen to factories and hospitals, expects adjusted earnings per share to grow by between 11% and 13% this year excluding currency effects.
Its previous projection had envisaged a range of 10% to 13%.
Linde said the guidance range takes account of expectations that there will be no Russian earnings from the middle of the year after the winding down of its operations in the country.
(Reporting by Bartosz Dabrowski in Gdansk; Editing by David Goodman)
