Curi RMB Capital LLC Has $767,000 Holdings in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Curi RMB Capital LLC grew its position in shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 20.8% during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 3,005 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after purchasing an additional 517 shares during the quarter. Curi RMB Capital LLC’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $767,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. KBC Group NV boosted its stake in shares of Ecolab by 64.6% during the third quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 330,475 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $84,380,000 after purchasing an additional 129,738 shares in the last quarter. Huntington National Bank boosted its stake in shares of Ecolab by 0.6% during the third quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 101,676 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $25,961,000 after purchasing an additional 638 shares in the last quarter. Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc boosted its stake in shares of Ecolab by 6.0% during the third quarter. Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc now owns 4,323 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,104,000 after purchasing an additional 246 shares in the last quarter. MQS Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Ecolab during the third quarter valued at about $549,000. Finally, Empower Advisory Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ecolab by 1.0% during the third quarter. Empower Advisory Group LLC now owns 565,477 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $144,383,000 after purchasing an additional 5,441 shares in the last quarter. 74.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ECL has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. UBS Group lowered Ecolab from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $276.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Bank of America upgraded Ecolab from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $251.00 to $272.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 31st. Citigroup upgraded Ecolab from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $267.00 to $265.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 31st. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on Ecolab from $271.00 to $279.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upgraded Ecolab from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $235.00 to $310.00 in a research report on Friday, October 18th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Ecolab has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $277.20.

Ecolab Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of ECL stock opened at $245.11 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $69.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.38, a PEG ratio of 2.50 and a beta of 1.13. Ecolab Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $182.39 and a fifty-two week high of $262.61. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $252.35 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $243.53. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a current ratio of 1.30.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $1.83 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.82 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $4 billion during 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 company’s quarterly revenue was up 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.54 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.65 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 409,136 shares of Ecolab stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the insider now owns 30,776,418 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,599,313,132.56. The trade was a 1.31 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Gregory B. Cook sold 3,811 shares of Ecolab stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.33, for a total value of $950,196.63. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 8,080 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,014,586.40. The trade was a 32.05 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 478,355 shares of company stock worth $117,922,965 over the last quarter. 0.04% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.