Arete Wealth Advisors LLC Has $339,000 Holdings in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Arete Wealth Advisors LLC lowered its stake in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 22.2% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,332 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 380 shares during the quarter. Arete Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $339,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Ecolab by 1.3% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,181,802 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,317,811,000 after buying an additional 68,043 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its stake in shares of Ecolab by 0.9% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 3,842,114 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $981,007,000 after purchasing an additional 35,027 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in shares of Ecolab by 5.0% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,558,198 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $608,851,000 after purchasing an additional 122,715 shares during the period. Mirova US LLC increased its stake in shares of Ecolab by 2.3% in the second quarter. Mirova US LLC now owns 1,975,415 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $470,149,000 after purchasing an additional 43,553 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Ecolab by 0.6% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,403,088 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $358,250,000 after purchasing an additional 8,332 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 74.91% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Ecolab

In other news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 106,542 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $241.21, for a total value of $25,698,995.82. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 29,348,741 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,079,209,816.61. The trade was a 0.36 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders have sold 834,566 shares of company stock valued at $205,225,417 in the last three months. 0.04% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Ecolab Trading Up 0.5 %

ECL stock opened at $250.07 on Friday. Ecolab Inc. has a 1-year low of $193.46 and a 1-year high of $262.61. The firm has a market cap of $70.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.07, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.13. The business’s 50 day moving average is $250.34 and its 200-day moving average is $245.83. 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 released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $1.83 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.82 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $4 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.03 billion. Ecolab had a return on equity of 22.12% and a net margin of 13.05%. The company’s revenue was up 1.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.54 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ecolab Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 17th will be issued a $0.65 dividend. This is an increase from Ecolab’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.04%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 17th. Ecolab’s payout ratio is presently 36.47%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have recently commented on ECL. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on Ecolab from $270.00 to $305.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. UBS Group lowered Ecolab from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $276.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Monday, November 4th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on Ecolab from $260.00 to $279.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on Ecolab from $240.00 to $263.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price target on Ecolab from $260.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, November 18th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Ecolab presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $279.87.

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.