Invesco LLC Purchases Shares of 1,075 Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Invesco LLC purchased a new position in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor purchased 1,075 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $213,000.

Several other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Ecolab by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,877,417 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,875,434,000 after buying an additional 387,545 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its holdings in Ecolab by 1.3% during the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 11,229,633 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,864,760,000 after acquiring an additional 141,180 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley grew its position in Ecolab by 58.0% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 5,510,224 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $802,069,000 after buying an additional 2,023,685 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Ecolab by 1.4% during the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,611,872 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $761,451,000 after purchasing an additional 64,844 shares during the period. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 4.0% during the second quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 3,730,373 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $696,424,000 after purchasing an additional 144,420 shares during the last quarter. 74.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on ECL shares. Citigroup boosted their price target on shares of Ecolab from $237.00 to $256.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 10th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Ecolab from $212.00 to $227.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $238.00 price objective on shares of Ecolab in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. UBS Group boosted their target price on Ecolab from $211.00 to $227.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 11th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded Ecolab from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price target for the company from $200.00 to $220.00 in a report on Wednesday, February 14th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Ecolab has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $230.47.

Ecolab Stock Down 1.2 %

Ecolab stock opened at $219.04 on Tuesday. Ecolab Inc. has a twelve month low of $156.72 and a twelve month high of $231.86. The company has a quick ratio of 0.95, a current ratio of 1.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94. The company has a 50 day moving average of $221.97 and a 200-day moving average of $198.13. The stock has a market capitalization of $62.63 billion, a PE ratio of 45.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.59 and a beta of 1.10.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 13th. The basic materials company reported $1.55 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.54 by $0.01. Ecolab had a net margin of 8.96% and a return on equity of 19.36%. The firm had revenue of $3.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.92 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.27 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.42 EPS for the current fiscal 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 paid a $0.57 dividend. This represents a $2.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.04%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 18th. 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.