Stonebrook Private Inc. Purchases Shares of 1,359 Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Stonebrook Private Inc. purchased a new stake in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 1,359 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $270,000.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings 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 valued at $3,875,434,000 after purchasing an additional 387,545 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in shares of Ecolab by 4.7% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,774,960 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $470,078,000 after acquiring an additional 123,572 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Ecolab by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,555,758 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $432,945,000 after acquiring an additional 41,545 shares during the period. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its stake in shares of Ecolab by 3.9% in the 3rd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 2,294,838 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $391,224,000 after acquiring an additional 85,985 shares during the period. Finally, Brown Advisory Inc. raised its stake in shares of Ecolab by 2.3% in the 3rd quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 2,173,210 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $368,142,000 after acquiring an additional 48,375 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 74.91% of the company’s stock.

Ecolab Trading Up 0.6 %

NYSE ECL opened at $221.10 on Monday. Ecolab Inc. has a one year low of $156.72 and a one year high of $231.86. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $223.89 and a 200-day simple moving average of $201.38. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a current ratio of 1.30. The firm has a market capitalization of $63.21 billion, a PE ratio of 46.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 1.10.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last posted its quarterly earnings results 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 net margin of 8.96% and a return on equity of 19.36%. The business had revenue of $3.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.92 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.27 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts forecast that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.42 earnings per share for the current year.

Ecolab Announces Dividend

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 dividend of $0.57 per share. This represents a $2.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.03%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 18th. Ecolab’s payout ratio is 47.60%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently commented on ECL. Barclays raised shares of Ecolab from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their target price for the company from $225.00 to $260.00 in a research note on Wednesday, February 28th. Wolfe Research assumed coverage on shares of Ecolab in a research note on Friday, March 1st. They set a “peer perform” rating on the stock. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Ecolab from $211.00 to $227.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 11th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $238.00 price target on shares of Ecolab in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. Finally, Piper Sandler assumed coverage on shares of Ecolab in a research note on Wednesday, April 3rd. They set an “overweight” rating and a $260.00 price target on the stock. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $230.47.

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.