White Pine Capital LLC Reduces Position in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

White Pine Capital LLC lessened its stake in shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 6.9% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 10,103 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 744 shares during the quarter. White Pine Capital LLC’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $2,004,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Headlands Technologies LLC lifted its stake in Ecolab by 0.8% in the fourth quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC now owns 6,805 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,350,000 after acquiring an additional 57 shares during the period. Truist Financial Corp lifted its stake in Ecolab by 1.1% in the fourth quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 357,328 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $70,876,000 after acquiring an additional 3,784 shares during the period. Motley Fool Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Ecolab by 6.2% in the fourth quarter. Motley Fool Asset Management LLC now owns 8,485 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,683,000 after acquiring an additional 494 shares during the period. Syon Capital LLC lifted its stake in Ecolab by 10.5% in the fourth quarter. Syon Capital LLC now owns 1,839 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $365,000 after acquiring an additional 174 shares during the period. Finally, Pittenger & Anderson Inc. bought a new position in Ecolab in the fourth quarter worth $3,148,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 74.91% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have issued reports on ECL. Raymond James increased their price objective on Ecolab from $230.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 3rd. Bank of America upgraded Ecolab from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $185.00 to $216.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. Wolfe Research began coverage on Ecolab in a report on Friday, March 1st. They issued a “peer perform” rating for the company. Barclays upgraded Ecolab from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $225.00 to $260.00 in a report on Wednesday, February 28th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Ecolab from $212.00 to $227.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 14th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Ecolab presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $230.47.

Ecolab Stock Performance

Shares of Ecolab stock traded up $1.31 during trading on Friday, hitting $221.10. 1,242,930 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,060,937. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 1.30 and a quick ratio of 0.95. Ecolab Inc. has a 1 year low of $156.72 and a 1 year high of $231.86. The stock has a market capitalization of $63.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.16, a PEG ratio of 2.57 and a beta of 1.10. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $223.89 and a 200-day simple moving average of $200.94.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 13th. The basic materials company reported $1.55 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.54 by $0.01. Ecolab had a return on equity of 19.36% and a net margin of 8.96%. The company had revenue of $3.94 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.92 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.27 earnings per share. Ecolab’s revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.42 EPS for the current year.

Ecolab Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 19th were given a $0.57 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 18th. This represents a $2.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.03%. Ecolab’s payout ratio is 47.60%.

About Ecolab

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.