The US-German industrial gases group Linde is once again raising its targets for the current year.
In the third quarter, Linde increased adjusted operating profit by 11 percent to $2.01 billion because price increases more than offset the exchange rate effects of the strong dollar.
Sales climbed 15 percent to $8.8 billion, as Linde announced on Thursday in Woking near London.
For the full year, the company now expects earnings per share of $11.93 to $12.03, which is 12 to 13 percent more than a year earlier.
In July, 11.73 to 11.93 dollars per share had been promised.
At the same time, Linde is also feeling a slight deterioration in the environment in Europe.
Here, revenues increased by 11 percent, but only due to significant price increases, while sales fell by 3 percent.
The main reason for this was the declining demand from the healthcare sector.
In the United States, Linde's largest market, sales were 20 percent up on the previous year.
Here, sales and price increases balanced each other out.
Linde plant construction, which had recently lost major orders from Russia due to the sanctions, experienced a boost.
Linde Engineering increased sales by 38 percent to $828 million and contributed $150 million in operating profit.
The order backlog rose to $3.1 billion.
"Regardless of the macroeconomic uncertainty, I have confidence in our business model and performance culture, which will continue to create value for shareholders in the years to come," said CEO Sanjiv Lamba.
For the current fourth quarter, Lamba predicted earnings per share of between $2.80 and $2.90, up one to five percent from a year earlier.
Currency effects alone curbed the increase by eight percentage points.