Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.65

Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, December 5th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 17th will be paid a dividend of 0.65 per share by the basic materials company on Wednesday, January 15th. This represents a $2.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.05%. This is a boost from Ecolab’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57.

Ecolab has increased its dividend payment by an average of 4.6% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 32 years. Ecolab has a payout ratio of 30.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Ecolab to earn $7.47 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.28 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 30.5%.

Ecolab Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of ECL traded down $0.88 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $247.98. The company had a trading volume of 824,162 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,087,054. The stock has a market cap of $70.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 1.13. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $251.05 and a 200-day simple moving average of $245.22. Ecolab has a fifty-two week low of $189.58 and a fifty-two week high of $262.61. The company has a current ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $1.83 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $4 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.03 billion. Ecolab had a net margin of 13.05% and a return on equity of 22.12%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.54 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Ecolab will post 6.65 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ecolab

In related news, Director Victoria Reich sold 393 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $250.00, for a total transaction of $98,250.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 24,041 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,010,250. This represents a 1.61 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 409,136 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $246.92, for a total transaction of $101,023,861.12. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 30,776,418 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,599,313,132.56. This represents a 1.31 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 834,959 shares of company stock worth $205,323,667. 0.04% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on ECL shares. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $306.00 price target on shares of Ecolab in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group lowered shares of Ecolab from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $276.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Monday, November 4th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Ecolab from $260.00 to $279.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Jefferies Financial Group raised shares of Ecolab from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $235.00 to $310.00 in a research note on Friday, October 18th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of Ecolab in a research note on Friday, October 18th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $279.87.

Ecolab Company 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.