MUNICH (Reuters) - German industrial gases specialist Linde (DE:LING) aims to increase adjusted core earnings by up to 9.7 percent this year, buoyed by a solid project backlog for gas it produces at its industrial customers' sites.
Linde on Monday forecast that earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), adjusted for one-off effects, would reach between 4.1 billion euros (3 billion pounds) and 4.3 billion euros, up from 3.92 billion last year.
Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter gained 5.4 percent to 1.02 billion euros, helped by a strong dollar boosting the value of overseas sales and growth in China, which was broadly in line with the average estimate in a Reuters poll among analysts.