Brighton Jones LLC Increases Holdings in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Brighton Jones LLC grew its holdings in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 2.0% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 3,555 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after purchasing an additional 69 shares during the period. Brighton Jones LLC’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $705,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC grew its stake in Ecolab by 5.1% during the 3rd quarter. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC now owns 1,473 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $249,000 after buying an additional 71 shares during the last quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. increased its stake in Ecolab by 18.6% in the third quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 38,730 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $6,561,000 after purchasing an additional 6,078 shares during the period. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Ecolab in the third quarter valued at about $281,000. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. boosted its stake in shares of Ecolab by 63.7% during the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 168,979 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $28,625,000 after buying an additional 65,757 shares during the period. Finally, Mission Wealth Management LP lifted its position in Ecolab by 1.9% during the 3rd quarter. Mission Wealth Management LP now owns 5,158 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $874,000 after acquiring an additional 95 shares during the period. 74.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on Ecolab from $238.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $211.00 to $227.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on shares of Ecolab from $225.00 to $233.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of Ecolab from $227.00 to $234.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Wolfe Research initiated coverage on shares of Ecolab in a research report on Friday, March 1st. They issued a “peer perform” rating for the company. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $233.65.

Ecolab Stock Performance

NYSE ECL opened at $224.98 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $224.37 and a 200 day moving average price of $202.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.92, a current ratio of 1.41 and a quick ratio of 0.95. The company has a market capitalization of $64.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.66, a PEG ratio of 2.61 and a beta of 1.08. Ecolab Inc. has a 1-year low of $156.72 and a 1-year high of $231.86.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 30th. The basic materials company reported $1.34 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.33 by $0.01. Ecolab had a return on equity of 20.56% and a net margin of 10.01%. The business had revenue of $3.75 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.74 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.88 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.0% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.49 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ecolab Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 19th were issued a $0.57 dividend. This represents a $2.28 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.01%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 18th. Ecolab’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 42.22%.

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.