Banque Pictet & Cie SA Grows Stock Position in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Banque Pictet & Cie SA increased its holdings in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 1.0% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 25,188 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after buying an additional 247 shares during the period. Banque Pictet & Cie SA’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $5,902,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Farther Finance Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Ecolab by 32.7% in the 3rd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 2,356 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $602,000 after purchasing an additional 581 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. increased its stake in shares of Ecolab by 15.9% during the 3rd quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 6,224 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,589,000 after acquiring an additional 855 shares during the last quarter. PFW Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Ecolab during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,262,000. Nordea Investment Management AB increased its stake in shares of Ecolab by 8.7% during the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 1,627,017 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $381,552,000 after acquiring an additional 129,635 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB increased its stake in shares of Ecolab by 797.3% during the 3rd quarter. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB now owns 17,820 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $4,550,000 after acquiring an additional 15,834 shares during the last quarter. 74.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have recently commented on ECL shares. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $290.00 to $305.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $257.00 to $280.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $295.00 to $313.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $285.00 to $307.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group raised shares of Ecolab from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $235.00 to $310.00 in a research report on Friday, October 18th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $284.33.

Ecolab Stock Down 0.2 %

Shares of NYSE:ECL opened at $264.99 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 1.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81. Ecolab Inc. has a 52-week low of $213.94 and a 52-week high of $268.00. The company has a 50 day moving average of $242.68 and a two-hundred day moving average of $246.33. The company has a market capitalization of $75.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.17, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.77 and a beta of 1.14.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 11th. The basic materials company reported $1.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $1.81. Ecolab had a net margin of 13.05% and a return on equity of 22.12%. As a group, analysts forecast that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.64 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ecolab Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 17th were paid a dividend of $0.65 per share. This is a boost from Ecolab’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.98%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, December 17th. Ecolab’s dividend payout ratio is 36.47%.

Insider Activity

In other news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 83,873 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $245.96, for a total transaction of $20,629,403.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 29,534,868 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,264,396,133.28. This represents a 0.28 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In the last three months, insiders sold 260,415 shares of company stock worth $63,544,899. 0.04% of the stock is currently owned by 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.