The Linde Group has revealed healthy sales growth for the first six months of 2008, with the group’s gases division performing particularly well and a reaffirmed forecast for the remaining year ahead.
The company achieved sales growth of 12.9% after adjusting for exchange rate effects to €6.256bn and a 15.4% increase in operating profit, after adjusting for exchange rate effects, to €1.258bn.
In terms of its outlook for 2008, Linde confirmed it expects sales to increase and earnings to rise at a faster rate than sales, while its medium-term target for 2010 has also been reaffirmed – to achieve operating profit of more than €3bn and ROCE (return on capital employed) of at least 13%.
Operating margin at group level rose by 40 basis points to 20.1%, compared with the figure for the six months to 30th June 2007.
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