One Wealth Capital Management LLC Acquires Shares of 924 Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

One Wealth Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund bought 924 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $217,000.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Farther Finance Advisors LLC increased its stake 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 worth $602,000 after acquiring an additional 581 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. increased its position in Ecolab by 15.9% in the third quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 6,224 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,589,000 after purchasing an additional 855 shares during the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc raised its stake in Ecolab by 7.9% during the third quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 37,867 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $9,669,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772 shares in the last quarter. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB lifted its position in Ecolab by 797.3% during the third quarter. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB now owns 17,820 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $4,550,000 after purchasing an additional 15,834 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its stake in shares of Ecolab by 14.2% in the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 33,886 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $8,652,000 after buying an additional 4,220 shares in the last quarter. 74.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have recently issued reports on ECL shares. StockNews.com cut shares of Ecolab from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 25th. Barclays upped their price objective on Ecolab from $260.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 18th. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on Ecolab from $271.00 to $279.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group lowered 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. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $228.00 to $255.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $278.27.

Ecolab Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of Ecolab stock traded down $0.65 on Tuesday, hitting $230.73. 720,183 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 922,143. The company has a current ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81. The company has a market cap of $65.33 billion, a PE ratio of 32.36, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.13. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $244.31 and its 200-day moving average price is $245.92. Ecolab Inc. has a 52 week low of $193.46 and a 52 week high of $262.61.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last issued its earnings results 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. Ecolab had a return on equity of 22.12% and a net margin of 13.05%. The business had revenue of $4 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.03 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.54 EPS. Ecolab’s revenue was up 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts predict that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.65 EPS for the current year.

Ecolab Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 17th will be given a dividend of $0.65 per share. This is an increase from Ecolab’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 17th. This represents a $2.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.13%. Ecolab’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 36.47%.

Insider Activity

In other Ecolab news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 65,015 shares of the firm’s 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 30,388,741 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,408,775,055.80. This trade represents a 0.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In the last quarter, insiders sold 834,566 shares of company stock worth $205,225,417. 0.04% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.