Citigroup Inc. Has $55.42 Million Stake in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Citigroup Inc. cut its position in shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 12.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 217,046 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 30,912 shares during the quarter. Citigroup Inc.’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $55,418,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Farther Finance Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Ecolab by 32.7% during the 3rd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 2,356 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $602,000 after buying an additional 581 shares during the period. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. boosted its stake in Ecolab by 15.9% during the third quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 6,224 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,589,000 after acquiring an additional 855 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Ecolab by 84.3% in the first quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC now owns 13,415 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,098,000 after purchasing an additional 6,137 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its stake in Ecolab by 50.9% in the second quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 4,922 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,171,000 after purchasing an additional 1,660 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tidal Investments LLC raised its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 19.1% during the first quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 21,198 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $4,895,000 after purchasing an additional 3,393 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 74.91% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have recently commented on ECL shares. Robert W. Baird raised their target price on Ecolab from $271.00 to $279.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Ecolab from $228.00 to $255.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on Ecolab from $240.00 to $263.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Bank of America upgraded shares of Ecolab from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $251.00 to $272.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 31st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Ecolab in a report on Friday, October 18th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $279.87.

Ecolab Stock Up 0.8 %

ECL stock opened at $245.30 on Friday. Ecolab Inc. has a 1-year low of $186.00 and a 1-year high of $262.61. The stock has a market cap of $69.46 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.40, a P/E/G ratio of 2.43 and a beta of 1.13. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $251.75 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $244.37. The company has a current ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last posted its quarterly earnings results 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. The company had revenue of $4 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.03 billion. Ecolab had a net margin of 13.05% and a return on equity of 22.12%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.54 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.65 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Ecolab

In other news, Director Victoria Reich sold 393 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $250.00, for a total transaction of $98,250.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 24,041 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,010,250. This represents a 1.61 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Gregory B. Cook sold 3,811 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.33, for a total value of $950,196.63. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 8,080 shares in the company, valued at $2,014,586.40. This represents a 32.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 838,770 shares of company stock worth $206,273,864 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.04% of the company’s stock.

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.