2. Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 41
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) is headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and it provides atmospheric gasses, process and specialty gasses, equipment, and related services in the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, India, and internationally. Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) serves the refining, chemical, manufacturing, electronics, magnetic resonance imaging, energy production, medical, food, and metals industries. It is one of the best chemical stocks to consider.
On March 6, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) effectively launched its registered green bond offerings that consist of two parts. The first part is $600 million of fixed-rate notes that are U.S. dollar-denominated and due in 2033. The second part is €700 million of fixed-rate notes that are euro-denominated and due in 2035.
Evercore ISI analyst Stephen Richardson on March 7 raised the firm’s price target on Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) to $305 from $295 and kept an In Line rating on the shares, and the stock has been added to the firm’s “Tactical Outperform” list. Despite underperforming its peer Linde plc (NYSE:LIN) by 16% in February after Q4 prints, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) now trades at a discount of three times its valuation. The analyst believes that the company’s base industrial gas business will continue to produce positive results through 2025.
According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 41 hedge funds were long Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD), compared to 43 funds in the earlier quarter. Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management is a prominent stakeholder of the company, with 225,640 shares worth $69.5 million.
ClearBridge Large Cap Value Strategy made the following comment about Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) in its Q4 2022 investor letter:
“In the materials sector, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD)’s ability to recover higher energy costs, particularly in Europe as it continues to execute on its growth projects, has helped it to generate a positive return for the year and made it a strong contributor. The capital APD is deploying into hydrogen products globally is finally getting noticed as Europe is looking to diversify away from Russian natural gas and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) benefits domestic investments in renewables, such as APD’s $4.5 billion blue hydrogen project in Louisiana and its $4 billion green hydrogen production facility in Texas. APD is also teaming up with World Energy to build a $2.5 billion sustainable aviation fuel production facility in Southern California, a project that should also benefit from the IRA.”
