KBC Group NV Buys 129,729 Shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

KBC Group NV boosted its stake in shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 39.3% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 460,204 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after acquiring an additional 129,729 shares during the quarter. KBC Group NV’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $107,835,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Public Sector Pension Investment Board raised its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 77.2% during the second quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 9,393 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $2,236,000 after acquiring an additional 4,092 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ecolab by 12.1% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 109,521 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $26,066,000 after purchasing an additional 11,802 shares in the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its position in shares of Ecolab by 3.6% during the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 176,083 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $41,909,000 after buying an additional 6,037 shares during the period. Mackenzie Financial Corp raised its stake in Ecolab by 5.4% in the second quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 70,555 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $16,792,000 after buying an additional 3,602 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC purchased a new stake in Ecolab in the second quarter worth about $1,833,000. Institutional investors own 74.91% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have recently commented on ECL. Robert W. Baird raised their target price on Ecolab from $271.00 to $279.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Ecolab from $240.00 to $263.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $306.00 to $294.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, January 10th. BMO Capital Markets raised shares of Ecolab from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their target price for the company from $279.00 to $290.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, UBS Group cut shares of Ecolab from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $276.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Monday, November 4th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $277.47.

Ecolab Stock Performance

ECL opened at $242.28 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a current ratio of 1.30. The stock has a market capitalization of $68.60 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.98, a PEG ratio of 2.68 and a beta of 1.13. The company has a fifty day moving average of $241.23 and a 200 day moving average of $245.62. Ecolab Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $195.49 and a fifty-two week high of $262.61.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $1.83 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $4 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.03 billion. Ecolab had a return on equity of 22.12% and a net margin of 13.05%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.54 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.62 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ecolab Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 17th were paid a dividend of $0.65 per share. This is an increase from Ecolab’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, December 17th. This represents a $2.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.07%. Ecolab’s dividend payout ratio is presently 36.47%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ecolab

In other news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 65,015 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $243.80, for a total value of $15,850,657.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 30,388,741 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,408,775,055.80. This represents a 0.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders sold 834,566 shares of company stock worth $205,225,417 over the last 90 days. 0.04% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.