Ecolab Releases 2014 Q4 Results

Ecolab said its fourth-quarter earnings rose 17% on broad growth in the cleaning-products company’s revenue, led by sales in its energy and institutional businesses. The company expects its portfolio of business will help it turn in a strong performance in 2015 despite very unfavorable currency trends, CEO Doug Baker said during a conference call with analysts.

The company’s “other segments sales” category, which includes its pest business, increased 5% to $190 million in the fourth quarter led by pest, Ecolab reported. During a Q&A session with investors Baker was asked “Was there a big difference between international and domestic pest elimination performance?” He responded that there was not a dramatic difference, and that U.S pest remains the bigger business. He added that U.S. pest has been “steadily improving”  due to a number of investments in that business starting two years ago.

“We're going to continue [the investments],” he said. “I would say kind of the heavy investment status going into 2015 has been paying off and accelerating sales. I would also say there's a number of other metrics that continue to improve in that business. So that is the biggest piece of the pest business.”

Additional source: Ecolab and Seeking Alpha