SouthState Corp Sells 175 Shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

SouthState Corp cut its holdings in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 2.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 8,163 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 175 shares during the period. SouthState Corp’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $1,619,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its position in Ecolab by 117.9% during the third quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,669,583 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $282,185,000 after purchasing an additional 903,307 shares during the period. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ecolab by 19,062.1% during the 4th quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 555,893 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $110,261,000 after purchasing an additional 552,992 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Ecolab by 1.7% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,877,417 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $3,875,434,000 after purchasing an additional 387,545 shares during the last quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group lifted its stake in Ecolab by 62.1% in the third quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 984,504 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $166,775,000 after purchasing an additional 377,010 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Ecolab by 50.2% during the third quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 687,324 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $116,433,000 after buying an additional 229,776 shares during the period. 74.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Ecolab Stock Performance

ECL stock traded up $0.73 during trading on Friday, reaching $227.49. The company had a trading volume of 1,068,171 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,213,130. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.92, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a current ratio of 1.41. Ecolab Inc. has a twelve month low of $156.72 and a twelve month high of $231.86. The company has a market cap of $65.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 1.09. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $224.51 and a 200-day simple moving average of $202.54.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 30th. The basic materials company reported $1.34 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.33 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $3.75 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.74 billion. Ecolab had a net margin of 10.01% and a return on equity of 20.56%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.88 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.55 earnings per share for the current year.

Ecolab Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 15th. Investors of record on Tuesday, June 18th will be given a $0.57 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, June 18th. This represents a $2.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.00%. Ecolab’s dividend payout ratio is currently 42.22%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently issued reports on ECL. Wolfe Research initiated coverage on Ecolab in a report on Friday, March 1st. They set a “peer perform” rating for the company. Raymond James boosted their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $230.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 3rd. Robert W. Baird raised their target price on shares of Ecolab from $232.00 to $243.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Ecolab from $240.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 14th. Finally, Seaport Res Ptn lowered Ecolab from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Ecolab currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $233.65.

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.