Ecolab (ECL) Miss On Q4 Sales; Earnings In Line – Tale of the Tape

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Ecolab Inc. (ECL), founded in 1923 and headquartered in St. Paul, MN, is a leading provider of cleaning, sanitizing, food safety and infection prevention products and services. The company serves the foodservice, food and beverage processing, healthcare, and hospitality markets both in the U.S. as well as internationally. The company’s 10 operating units have been aggregated into 4 reportable segments, namely Global Industrial, Global Institutional, Global Energy and Other.

Currently, Ecolab has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) but that could change following its fourth-quarter fiscal 2014 earnings report which has just released. We have highlighted some of the key details from the just-released announcement below:

Earnings: Ecolab posted adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.20 which increased nearly 15% on a year-over-year basis. Adjusted EPS is in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

Sales: Net sales amounted to $3.68 billion, up 3% from the prior-year quarter. However, net sales missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.75 billion.

Key Stats: Global Industrial segment sales grew 4% year over year to $1.28 billion. Global Institutional segment sales increased 6% to $1.12 billion. Global Energy segment sales spiked 11% year over year to $1.14 billion, whereas sales from the Other segment grew 5% year over year to $190.1 million.

Major Factors: Ecolab is reportedly planning to repurchase $1 billion shares and also accelerate its acquisition pipeline.

Stock Price: Following the earnings release, share prices did not show any movement in the pre-market trading session.

Check back later for our full write up on this Ecolab earnings report later!

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