Ecolab Inc.
- Open
- 285.35
- Day high
- 286.38
- Day low
- 281.33
- Prev close
- 286.75
- Volume
- 1.5M
- Mkt cap
- $79.4B
- P/E (TTM)
- 37.8
- EPS (TTM)
- $7.50
- P/B
- 7.9
- P/S
- 4.7
- Yield
- 1.00%
- Per share
- $2.84
- ▼Insiders net selling -$7.6M over the last 3 months (2 open-market buys, 4 sales)
- ◆Cluster buying — multiple insiders bought within days
- 🏛Institutions mixed (13F)
Ecolab Inc. (ECL) is a Basic Materials company listed on NYSE. The stock is up 3% over the past year. Over the trailing 3 months, insiders filed 2 open-market buys and 4 sales (SEC Form 4).
Ecolab Inc. (ECL) financials & analyst ratings
Fundamentals (TTM)
Analyst consensus · 8 analysts
Source: exchange market data + company filings. Figures are trailing-twelve-month or as most recently reported. For informational purposes only — not investment advice.
ECL earnings date, history & EPS estimates
| Report date | EPS est | EPS actual | Surprise | Revenue | Rev. surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 28, 2026 | $2.08 | $2.09 | +0.5% | $4.4B | +0.7% |
| Apr 28, 2026 | $1.70 | $1.70 | +0.0% | $4.1B | +1.0% |
| Oct 28, 2025 | $2.07 | $2.07 | +0.0% | $4.2B | +1.1% |
| Jul 29, 2025 | $1.90 | $1.89 | -0.5% | $4.0B | +0.1% |
| Feb 11, 2025 | $1.81 | $1.81 | +0.0% | $4.0B | +0.5% |
| Jul 30, 2024 | $1.67 | $1.68 | +0.6% | $4.0B | -1.2% |
| Feb 13, 2024 | $1.54 | $1.55 | +0.6% | $3.9B | +0.1% |
| Oct 31, 2023 | $1.52 | $1.54 | +1.3% | $4.0B | -1.2% |
| May 2, 2023 | $0.86 | $0.88 | +2.3% | $3.6B | +2.8% |
| Feb 14, 2023 | $1.25 | $1.27 | +1.6% | $3.7B | -0.9% |
| Nov 1, 2022 | $1.31 | $1.30 | -0.8% | $3.7B | +0.3% |
| Jul 26, 2022 | $1.09 | $1.10 | +0.9% | $3.6B | +2.7% |
ECL insider trading activity (SEC Form 4)
| Date | Insider | Type | Shares | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 20, 2026 | Beck Christophedirector, officer: CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT & CEO | Sell | 17,862 | $280.14 |
| Aug 11, 2026 | Cook Gregory Bofficer: Co-COO - Global Businesses | Sell | 4,567 | $285.13 |
| Aug 5, 2026 | Bradway Jennifer Jofficer: SVP & CORPORATE CONTROLLER | Option | 6,457 | — |
| Aug 5, 2026 | Bradway Jennifer Jofficer: SVP & CORPORATE CONTROLLER | Tax | 2,944 | $278.79 |
| Jul 31, 2026 | Kirkland Scott Dofficer: CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER | Sell | 3,357 | $276.96 |
| Jul 31, 2026 | Kirkland Scott Dofficer: CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER | Option | 3,972 | $117.73 |
| Jul 2, 2026 | NOWELL LIONEL L IIIdirector | Grant | 130 | — |
| Jul 2, 2026 | ZILLMER JOHN Jdirector | Grant | 130 | — |
| Jul 2, 2026 | Green Eric Markdirector | Grant | 130 | — |
| Jul 2, 2026 | LARSON MICHAELdirector | Grant | 130 | — |
| Jul 2, 2026 | Althoff Judsondirector | Grant | 130 | — |
| Jul 2, 2026 | McKibben Tracy Bdirector | Grant | 130 | — |
| Jul 2, 2026 | MacLennan Daviddirector | Grant | 46 | $278.46 |
| Jul 2, 2026 | Ballard Shari Ldirector | Grant | 130 | — |
| Jul 2, 2026 | Green Eric Markdirector | Grant | 144 | $278.46 |
Source: ECL SEC Form 4 filings, latest Aug 20, 2026. For informational purposes only — not investment advice.
See the full ECL insider & 13F page →Ecolab Inc. company profile
Overview
Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) is a leading provider of water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions founded in 1923 and headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The company has evolved from its origins as Economics Laboratory into a global industrial services giant serving customers across manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare, and institutional sectors. With operations spanning 170 countries, Ecolab has established itself as a critical partner to industries requiring specialized cleaning, sanitizing, and water treatment solutions. The company went public in 1957 and has built its reputation through decades of innovation in chemistry, engineering, and digital technologies that help customers improve operational efficiency while meeting stringent safety and regulatory standards.
Business
Ecolab operates in the specialty chemicals industry, providing mission-critical cleaning, sanitizing, and water treatment solutions that keep global industries running safely and efficiently. The company's products and services are essential for maintaining hygiene standards, preventing contamination, and optimizing water usage across diverse industrial and institutional applications. The company operates through three primary business segments. Global Industrial represents the largest segment, serving manufacturing industries including food and beverage processing, chemical plants, power generation facilities, mining operations, and petroleum refineries. This segment provides water treatment systems that prevent corrosion and scaling in industrial equipment, as well as specialized cleaning chemicals that maintain production line hygiene and equipment performance. Global Institutional & Specialty focuses on the hospitality, foodservice, education, and retail sectors, providing cleaning and sanitizing products that ensure food safety and maintain sanitary conditions in restaurants, hotels, schools, and commercial facilities. This segment has shown particularly strong growth, with margins exceeding 20%, driven by labor-saving technologies and solutions that help customers improve operational efficiency. Global Healthcare & Life Sciences serves hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and personal care companies with specialized infection prevention products, surgical solutions, and contamination control systems. The Life Sciences portion of this segment has emerged as a high-growth area with margins around 30%, serving the expanding biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturing sectors. Additional operations include Pest Elimination services that detect and eliminate rodents and insects in commercial facilities, and emerging growth areas like Global High Tech, which provides cooling solutions for data centers and microelectronics manufacturing. The company has also developed Ecolab Digital, a technology platform that manages over 100,000 customer systems and captures billions of data points to optimize customer operations through predictive analytics and remote monitoring.
Revenue model
Ecolab generates revenue through multiple complementary business models centered on providing essential industrial services. The primary revenue stream comes from product sales of specialty chemicals, equipment, and consumables that customers use continuously in their operations. Unlike one-time purchases, these products require regular replenishment, creating recurring revenue relationships. The company also earns significant revenue through service subscriptions and ongoing support contracts. Ecolab technicians regularly visit customer facilities to monitor equipment performance, adjust chemical dosing, and ensure optimal system operation. This service model creates sticky customer relationships and provides opportunities for value-based pricing, as customers pay for measurable improvements in operational efficiency, regulatory compliance, and cost savings. Equipment leasing and digital services represent growing revenue streams, particularly through Ecolab Digital, which provides software applications, data analytics, and IoT-enabled monitoring systems. The company captures over 120 billion proprietary data points annually, enabling predictive maintenance and optimization services that customers pay for on a subscription basis. The company's margins are influenced by several key factors. Raw material costs for specialty chemicals can fluctuate based on commodity prices, though Ecolab has demonstrated ability to implement value-based pricing to offset cost inflation. Customer concentration in essential industries provides pricing power, as customers view Ecolab's solutions as critical for regulatory compliance and operational continuity rather than discretionary expenses. Innovation and technological differentiation enable premium pricing, particularly for digital solutions and specialized applications like data center cooling. The company's local-for-local production strategy, with 92% of sales produced locally, provides natural hedging against currency fluctuations and supply chain disruptions while supporting margin stability.
Competitive moat
Ecolab possesses a strong economic moat built on multiple reinforcing competitive advantages. The company's switching costs create significant customer stickiness, as changing chemical suppliers requires extensive testing, regulatory approvals, and retraining of personnel. Customers often integrate Ecolab's systems deeply into their operations, making switches disruptive and costly. Regulatory expertise and compliance represent another key moat element. Ecolab's products must meet stringent safety and environmental regulations across different industries and geographies. The company's deep regulatory knowledge and ability to help customers maintain compliance creates significant value that competitors struggle to replicate quickly. The company's network effects strengthen over time through its digital platform, which becomes more valuable as more customers contribute data and insights. Ecolab's ability to benchmark performance across similar facilities and industries provides unique optimization opportunities that standalone competitors cannot match. Scale advantages in research and development enable Ecolab to invest heavily in innovation, with a $1.5 billion innovation pipeline and vitality index around 30%. The company's global reach allows it to amortize R&D costs across a large customer base while providing local technical support through its extensive field service network. However, the moat faces potential challenges from technological disruption, particularly as customers develop in-house capabilities or alternative treatment methods. Consolidation among customers could increase their bargaining power, while environmental regulations may require significant reformulation of existing products. The emergence of digital-native competitors in specific niches could also challenge Ecolab's technology leadership in certain segments.
Risks & safety
Ecolab maintains a moderate margin of safety with mixed financial strength indicators. • Debt and liquidity position: Debt-to-equity ratio of 0.93 indicates moderate leverage, with $1.26 billion in cash providing adequate liquidity buffer • Cash generation: Strong free cash flow of $1.82 billion in 2024 demonstrates robust cash generation capabilities, though working capital needs can create quarterly variations • Solvency risk: Low solvency risk given essential nature of products and strong cash flows, though cyclical industrial exposure creates some vulnerability • Valuation metrics: Current P/E ratio of 31.5x appears elevated relative to historical averages, suggesting limited valuation-based margin of safety • EV/EBITDA: At 19.2x, multiple reflects premium valuation that leaves little room for execution disappointments • Growth expectations: Current valuation appears to embed optimistic assumptions about margin expansion and growth acceleration • Other considerations: Defensive characteristics of business model provide some downside protection, but premium valuation and moderate leverage limit overall margin of safety
Recent development
Ecolab has undergone significant strategic transformation over the past several years, pivoting from a traditional chemical supplier to a technology-enabled solutions provider. The company launched the "One Ecolab" initiative designed to leverage its global scale and data capabilities across customer relationships, targeting $55 billion in cross-selling opportunities among existing customers. This initiative aims to generate $140 million in annualized savings by 2027 while driving 5-7% long-term organic sales growth. Digital transformation has emerged as a core strategic priority, with Ecolab Digital growing to several hundred million dollars in revenue. The platform now manages over 100,000 customer systems and captures over 120 billion proprietary data points annually, enabling predictive analytics and remote optimization services. The company plans to begin reporting digital sales separately starting in 2025, highlighting the growing importance of this revenue stream. Portfolio optimization has included strategic divestitures and business restructuring. The company divested its Global Surgical Solutions business and reorganized its healthcare operations, moving healthcare services under the institutional segment to leverage greater scale and operational efficiency. Simultaneously, Ecolab has invested heavily in high-growth areas including Life Sciences, which now generates margins around 30%, and Global High Tech, serving data centers and microelectronics manufacturing with over $300 million in revenue and margins above 20%. The company has also emphasized innovation and new product development, maintaining a vitality index around 30% with a record $1.5 billion innovation pipeline. Key focus areas include water technologies, digital capabilities, and specialized solutions for emerging industries like semiconductor manufacturing and biotechnology. Capital expenditure has increased to 7% of sales to support growth investments in digitally connected systems and manufacturing capabilities.
ECL company profile · for informational purposes only — not investment advice.
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