ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. Has $652,000 Holdings in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. raised its position in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 3.6% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 2,782 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after purchasing an additional 97 shares during the period. ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $652,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. NBC Securities Inc. lifted its holdings in Ecolab by 2.3% in the third quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 1,778 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $453,000 after buying an additional 40 shares during the period. Community Financial Services Group LLC lifted its stake in shares of Ecolab by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Community Financial Services Group LLC now owns 15,429 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $3,940,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the period. Angeles Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Ecolab by 3.0% during the 3rd quarter. Angeles Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,391 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $355,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares in the last quarter. Bangor Savings Bank grew its stake in Ecolab by 17.3% during the third quarter. Bangor Savings Bank now owns 292 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $75,000 after purchasing an additional 43 shares during the period. Finally, Leverty Financial Group LLC increased its holdings in Ecolab by 0.5% in the third quarter. Leverty Financial Group LLC now owns 8,718 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $2,226,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares in the last quarter. 74.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have recently commented on ECL shares. BMO Capital Markets raised shares of Ecolab from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $279.00 to $290.00 in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Piper Sandler reduced their price target on shares of Ecolab from $305.00 to $270.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $240.00 to $263.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. StockNews.com cut shares of Ecolab from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 25th. Finally, UBS Group lowered Ecolab from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $276.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Ecolab currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $277.47.

Ecolab Trading Down 0.6 %

NYSE ECL opened at $237.63 on Tuesday. 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 business has a fifty day simple moving average of $241.96 and a 200 day simple moving average of $245.62. Ecolab Inc. has a 12 month low of $195.49 and a 12 month high of $262.61. The firm has a market capitalization of $67.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.33, a PEG ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 1.13.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last announced its earnings results 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. Ecolab had a net margin of 13.05% and a return on equity of 22.12%. The company had revenue of $4 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.03 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.54 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts predict that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.62 EPS 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 $0.65 dividend. This represents a $2.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.09%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, December 17th. This is an increase from Ecolab’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. Ecolab’s payout ratio is presently 36.47%.

Insider Activity

In other news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 100,000 shares of Ecolab stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $248.06, for a total transaction of $24,806,000.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 29,718,741 shares in the company, valued at $7,372,030,892.46. The trade was a 0.34 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Insiders sold a total of 834,566 shares of company stock valued at $205,225,417 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.50% of the company’s stock.

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.