Park National Corp OH Has $15.42 Million Holdings in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Park National Corp OH trimmed its holdings in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 2.5% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 65,785 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 1,653 shares during the period. Park National Corp OH’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $15,415,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. One Wealth Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Ecolab in the fourth quarter valued at $217,000. Bath Savings Trust Co boosted its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 2.3% during the 4th quarter. Bath Savings Trust Co now owns 71,701 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $16,801,000 after buying an additional 1,578 shares during the period. Spartan Planning & Wealth Management acquired a new position in Ecolab in the 4th quarter valued at about $228,000. Diversified Trust Co raised its holdings in Ecolab by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Diversified Trust Co now owns 9,984 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $2,339,000 after acquiring an additional 123 shares during the period. Finally, CWA Asset Management Group LLC lifted its position in Ecolab by 4.7% during the fourth quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC now owns 1,792 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $420,000 after acquiring an additional 81 shares during the last quarter. 74.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently commented on ECL. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Ecolab from $228.00 to $255.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded Ecolab from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $235.00 to $310.00 in a research report on Friday, October 18th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $306.00 target price on shares of Ecolab in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group lowered shares of 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. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $240.00 to $263.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $278.27.

Ecolab Price Performance

Shares of ECL stock opened at $231.74 on Wednesday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $243.87 and a 200 day simple moving average of $245.84. The company has a market cap of $65.62 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.50, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.13. The company has a quick ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 1.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81. Ecolab Inc. has a twelve month low of $193.46 and a twelve month high of $262.61.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $1.83 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $4 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.03 billion. Ecolab had a net margin of 13.05% and a return on equity of 22.12%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.54 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.65 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ecolab Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 17th will be issued a dividend of $0.65 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 17th. This is an increase from Ecolab’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.12%. Ecolab’s dividend payout ratio is 36.47%.

Insider Activity at Ecolab

In other news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 409,136 shares of Ecolab stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $246.92, for a total transaction of $101,023,861.12. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 30,776,418 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,599,313,132.56. The trade was a 1.31 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders have sold a total of 834,566 shares of company stock valued at $205,225,417 in the last 90 days. 0.04% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Ecolab Company 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.