Ecolab Inc. (ECL) To Go Ex-Dividend on December 17th

Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, December 5th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 17th will be given a dividend of 0.65 per share by the basic materials company on Wednesday, January 15th. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.04%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, December 17th. This is an increase from Ecolab’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57.

Ecolab has raised its dividend by an average of 4.6% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 33 consecutive years. Ecolab has a payout ratio of 34.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Ecolab to earn $7.47 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 34.8%.

Ecolab Trading Up 0.6 %

NYSE:ECL opened at $250.20 on Friday. Ecolab has a 12 month low of $193.46 and a 12 month high of $262.61. 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 50-day moving average price of $250.34 and a 200-day moving average price of $245.95. The stock has a market cap of $70.85 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.09, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.13.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $1.83 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.03 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.54 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts predict that Ecolab will post 6.65 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 70,000 shares of Ecolab stock in a transaction dated 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 $7,176,511,348.95. The trade was a 0.24 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 834,566 shares of company stock worth $205,225,417. Company insiders own 0.04% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ECL has been the topic of several research reports. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $306.00 price objective on shares of Ecolab in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group cut Ecolab from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $276.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Monday, November 4th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on Ecolab from $260.00 to $279.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Jefferies Financial Group raised Ecolab from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $235.00 to $310.00 in a report on Friday, October 18th. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on Ecolab from $260.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, November 18th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $279.87.

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.