Chesley Taft & Associates LLC Decreases Stake in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Chesley Taft & Associates LLC trimmed its position in shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 1.5% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 40,912 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 635 shares during the quarter. Chesley Taft & Associates LLC’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $9,586,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ECL. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV lifted its position in shares of Ecolab by 15.2% during the 2nd quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 15,032 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,578,000 after purchasing an additional 1,986 shares during the last quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC raised its stake in Ecolab by 1.0% in the second quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 8,164 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,943,000 after buying an additional 81 shares in the last quarter. AE Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in Ecolab by 61.5% during the 2nd quarter. AE Wealth Management LLC now owns 5,081 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,209,000 after buying an additional 1,935 shares during the last quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans boosted its position in shares of Ecolab by 552.5% during the 2nd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 78,193 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $18,610,000 after acquiring an additional 66,210 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Summit Trail Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 3.7% in the 2nd quarter. Summit Trail Advisors LLC now owns 2,321 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $554,000 after acquiring an additional 82 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 74.91% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Ecolab

In related news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 65,015 shares of Ecolab stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $243.80, for a total transaction of $15,850,657.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 30,388,741 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,408,775,055.80. The trade was a 0.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders have sold a total of 834,566 shares of company stock worth $205,225,417 over the last three months. 0.50% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Ecolab Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of ECL stock opened at $237.63 on Tuesday. Ecolab Inc. has a twelve month low of $195.49 and a twelve month high of $262.61. The company has a current ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81. The business’s 50 day moving average is $241.70 and its two-hundred day moving average is $245.63. The company has a market capitalization of $67.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 1.13.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $1.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.82 by $0.01. Ecolab had a net margin of 13.05% and a return on equity of 22.12%. The company had revenue of $4 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.03 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.54 EPS. Ecolab’s revenue was up 1.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.62 EPS for the current year.

Ecolab Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 17th were issued a $0.65 dividend. This is a boost from Ecolab’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.09%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, December 17th. Ecolab’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 36.47%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Ecolab from $228.00 to $255.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $305.00 to $270.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of Ecolab from $271.00 to $279.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Ecolab from $240.00 to $263.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $306.00 to $294.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $277.47.

Ecolab Profile

Ecolab Inc provides water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Global Industrial; Global Institutional & Specialty; and Global Healthcare & Life Sciences. The Global Industrial segment offers water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions to manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemical, metals and mining, power generation, pulp and paper, commercial laundry, petroleum, refining, and petrochemical industries.