Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Makes New Investment in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System purchased a new position in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 15,300 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,035,000.

Several other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Graypoint LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ecolab by 7.2% during the 4th quarter. Graypoint LLC now owns 1,776 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $352,000 after buying an additional 120 shares during the period. Birch Hill Investment Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ecolab by 1.8% during the 4th quarter. Birch Hill Investment Advisors LLC now owns 312,143 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $61,914,000 after buying an additional 5,588 shares during the period. First Personal Financial Services acquired a new stake in shares of Ecolab during the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Beacon Financial Planning Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Ecolab during the 4th quarter valued at $226,000. Finally, Braun Bostich & Associates Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Ecolab by 14.5% during the 4th quarter. Braun Bostich & Associates Inc. now owns 1,373 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $272,000 after buying an additional 174 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 74.91% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ECL has been the subject of a number of research reports. UBS Group lifted their target price on shares of Ecolab from $211.00 to $227.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 11th. Piper Sandler assumed coverage on shares of Ecolab in a research note on Wednesday, April 3rd. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $260.00 price objective for the company. Bank of America raised shares of Ecolab from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $185.00 to $216.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of Ecolab from $237.00 to $256.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered shares of Ecolab from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $200.00 to $220.00 in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $230.47.

Ecolab Stock Performance

NYSE ECL opened at $219.04 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $62.63 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.73, a PEG ratio of 2.59 and a beta of 1.10. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $221.97 and its 200 day simple moving average is $198.13. Ecolab Inc. has a twelve month low of $156.72 and a twelve month high of $231.86. The company has a quick ratio of 0.95, a current ratio of 1.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 13th. The basic materials company reported $1.55 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.54 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $3.94 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.92 billion. Ecolab had a net margin of 8.96% and a return on equity of 19.36%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.27 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.42 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ecolab Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, March 19th were given a dividend of $0.57 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 18th. This represents a $2.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.04%. Ecolab’s payout ratio is 47.60%.

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.