Munger Mode rating: 3 out of 5 — Hold. Our own rating from the research report below, on business quality first: moat durability and management, with price separating the top three.
Charlie and I have always said the industrial gas business is one of the finest industrial oligopolies ever constructed — and we mean that sincerely. Three rational players, twenty-year take-or-pay contracts, molecules that cost a fraction of the customer's budget but shut the plant down if they stop flowing. Air Products owns a genuine franchise of this kind. But this report must also be a case study in what happens when able management catches religion. Over the past five years, the prior regime bet the company's balance sheet on green hydrogen megaprojects, and the new regime has now written off roughly $6.6 billion of cumulative project exit charges — the Louisiana clean energy complex alone was budgeted at $4.5 billion and heading toward $8–9 billion before it was mercifully shot. That is four years of dividends incinerated.
Recent filings analysed: 8-K (2026-07-30), 10-Q (2026-07-30), 8-K (2026-06-30), 8-K (2026-04-30).
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