Fulton Bank N.A. Purchases Shares of 1,177 Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Fulton Bank N.A. purchased a new stake in shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 1,177 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $276,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of ECL. Coastline Trust Co bought a new stake in Ecolab during the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Meeder Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Ecolab in the second quarter worth about $33,000. Concord Wealth Partners increased its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 62.0% in the third quarter. Concord Wealth Partners now owns 149 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $38,000 after purchasing an additional 57 shares during the last quarter. Hara Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of Ecolab in the third quarter worth about $40,000. Finally, Asset Dedication LLC increased its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 2,188.9% in the third quarter. Asset Dedication LLC now owns 206 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $53,000 after purchasing an additional 197 shares during the last quarter. 74.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ECL has been the topic of several research reports. BMO Capital Markets raised Ecolab from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $279.00 to $290.00 in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. UBS Group cut 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. Wells Fargo & Company reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of Ecolab in a research note on Friday, October 18th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Ecolab from $228.00 to $255.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Ecolab from $240.00 to $263.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $277.47.

Ecolab Stock Down 2.0 %

Shares of NYSE ECL opened at $229.95 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a current ratio of 1.30. The firm has a market capitalization of $65.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.25, a PEG ratio of 2.50 and a beta of 1.13. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $243.00 and a 200 day moving average price of $245.58. Ecolab Inc. has a 52-week low of $195.49 and a 52-week high of $262.61.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $1.83 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $4 billion during 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%. Ecolab’s revenue was up 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.54 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.65 earnings per share for the current year.

Ecolab Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 17th will be issued a dividend of $0.65 per share. 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%. This is a positive change from Ecolab’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. Ecolab’s dividend payout ratio is currently 36.47%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 70,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $245.95, for a total transaction of $17,216,500.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 29,178,741 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,176,511,348.95. This represents a 0.24 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Insiders sold a total of 834,566 shares of company stock worth $205,225,417 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.04% of the company’s stock.

About Ecolab

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.