Linde takes a $425 million restructuring charge, its non-cash part mostly at Lincare, its US home care unit

Most of Linde's business is industrial gases, sold to chemical makers and refiners, manufacturers, chip plants, miners, food companies and hospitals. A much smaller part, Lincare, looks after patients in their homes in the US. In the September 2026 quarter Linde booked $425 million of cost reduction charges, and Lincare is where most of the non-cash portion landed. Of that, $200 million was severance and $42 million other cost cutting across the group; the remaining $183 million was non-cash charges that the quarterly filing ties primarily to the US homecare business. The filing does not split the severance by business, so the part that can be pinned on Lincare is the non-cash slice.

The charge is why the two earnings figures Linde reports moved in opposite directions. Diluted earnings per share, the figure under standard accounting, fell to $3.66 from $4.09 a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share, which leaves out the charge and the accounting effects of the Linde AG purchase, rose 9% to $4.59, above the $4.45 to $4.55 the company had guided in July.

Lincare's trouble did not start last quarter. In May, management described the US home care business as relatively flat after a policy change. By July it was blaming cost inflation and policy changes for weaker margins in the Americas, said it was evaluating strategic options for the unit, and expected it to improve sequentially in the third quarter. What the third quarter brought was the charge, and a change of reporting line: Lincare now answers to the chief financial officer, Matthew White, and has moved out of the Americas segment into Other.

The wording on a sale has also shifted. In July the company was evaluating options; now White told analysts that Linde will "continue to evaluate strategic options, but we can't assure there will be a strategic option to be had". He said the segment move followed accounting rules on who oversees a business, and pointed to GIST, a unit that went the same way into Other years ago and was later sold, adding only that Linde would see what happens this time. He also said Lincare has produced positive free cash flow throughout.

For a holder, the important point is what the adjusted figure still contains. The charge is excluded, but Lincare's weaker trading is not. White put Lincare's annualised sales at almost $2.3 billion and said the unit has cost Linde about 1.5% to 2% of earnings-per-share growth so far this year. Moving it out of the Americas also changes how that segment reads: White acknowledged that price recovery there will look more pronounced because Lincare's sales no longer sit in the base of the calculation.

The fourth-quarter guidance, adjusted earnings per share of $4.40 to $4.50, assumes no meaningful change in Lincare's profit despite the actions taken. White expects the severance to pay for itself in close to two years, starting this quarter, with the full benefit only in the second half of next year.