Savvy Advisors Inc. Buys 498 Shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Savvy Advisors Inc. grew its stake in shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 31.3% during the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,091 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after buying an additional 498 shares during the quarter. Savvy Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $530,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of ECL. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its stake in shares of Ecolab by 27,182.2% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,813,175 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $459,676,000 after buying an additional 1,806,529 shares during the last quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co boosted its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 27,677.8% during the first quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 1,000,000 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $253,520,000 after purchasing an additional 996,400 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 79.6% during the first quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,260,813 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $319,641,000 after purchasing an additional 558,947 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 19.7% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,129,058 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $733,201,000 after purchasing an additional 514,944 shares during the period. Finally, Raiffeisen Bank International AG purchased a new stake in shares of Ecolab during the fourth quarter worth about $79,980,000. 74.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ECL has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. UBS Group upgraded shares of Ecolab from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Oppenheimer upgraded shares of Ecolab to an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Ecolab from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 21st. Wells Fargo & Company set a $260.00 price objective on shares of Ecolab and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 20th. Finally, Mizuho raised their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $285.00 to $305.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 15th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and three have issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Ecolab currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $290.71.

Ecolab Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ECL opened at $272.83 on Friday. Ecolab Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $221.62 and a fifty-two week high of $274.17. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $267.21 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $257.62. The company has a market capitalization of $77.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.43, a P/E/G ratio of 2.79 and a beta of 1.06. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.80, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.44.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The basic materials company reported $1.89 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.90 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $4.03 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.03 billion. Ecolab had a net margin of 13.59% and a return on equity of 22.52%. Analysts expect that Ecolab Inc. will post 7.54 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ecolab Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 15th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 16th will be given a dividend of $0.65 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 16th. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.0%. Ecolab’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 34.71%.

Ecolab 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.