Riverbridge Partners LLC Trims Position in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Riverbridge Partners LLC trimmed its stake in shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 10.8% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 14,025 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 1,693 shares during the quarter. Riverbridge Partners LLC’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $3,286,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Baker Ellis Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in Ecolab in the 4th quarter valued at $219,000. Daymark Wealth Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. Daymark Wealth Partners LLC now owns 3,586 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $840,000 after acquiring an additional 46 shares in the last quarter. Albion Financial Group UT increased its stake in shares of Ecolab by 4.1% during the fourth quarter. Albion Financial Group UT now owns 5,877 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,377,000 after acquiring an additional 234 shares during the period. Advisory Alpha LLC raised its holdings in Ecolab by 16.8% during the fourth quarter. Advisory Alpha LLC now owns 1,030 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $241,000 after purchasing an additional 148 shares in the last quarter. Finally, XML Financial LLC lifted its position in Ecolab by 5.3% in the fourth quarter. XML Financial LLC now owns 2,378 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $557,000 after purchasing an additional 120 shares during the period. 74.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on Ecolab from $271.00 to $279.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price objective on Ecolab from $306.00 to $294.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 10th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Ecolab from $228.00 to $255.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets raised shares of Ecolab from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and increased their target price for the company from $279.00 to $290.00 in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered their price target on Ecolab from $305.00 to $270.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. 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 an average target price of $277.47.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 65,015 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $243.80, for a total value of $15,850,657.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 30,388,741 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,408,775,055.80. This represents a 0.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In the last three months, insiders sold 834,566 shares of company stock valued at $205,225,417. Company insiders own 0.04% of the company’s stock.

Ecolab Trading Up 0.3 %

ECL stock opened at $241.73 on Thursday. Ecolab Inc. has a 52 week low of $195.49 and a 52 week high of $262.61. The company has a market cap of $68.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.90, a PEG ratio of 2.67 and a beta of 1.13. The company has a quick ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 1.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $241.38 and a 200-day simple moving average of $245.62.

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

Ecolab Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 17th were issued a dividend of $0.65 per share. This is a positive change from Ecolab’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, December 17th. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.08%. Ecolab’s payout ratio is presently 36.47%.

Ecolab Company 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.