Ecolab Inc.

S&P Global Ratings' stable outlook on Ecolab reflects its expectation that the company's credit metrics will remain appropriate for the rating over the next two years. We expect weighted-average FFO to debt at or above 30% and debt to EBITDA below 3x, supported by strong GDP growth in the U.S. and Europe. Our base case does not factor in any major divestitures. We could lower our issuer credit rating on Ecolab over the next two years if we expected weighted-average FFO to debt to decline below 30% or debt to EBITDA to exceed 3x, with no immediate prospect of improvement. This could occur if operating performance were worse than we expected due to weakening across its end markets or macroeconomic

...The company is well positioned as a global leader in a service-intensive segment of the chemicals sector. Ecolab provides a wide variety of services catering to a broad array of customers, including water treatment applications to the food and beverage, manufacturing, and transportation industries and specialized cleaning and sanitizing products to the health care, hospitality, and pharmaceutical industries. The company's businesses have a large service component that benefits from branding, which creates a value-added business atypical of companies in the chemical sector. Even after considering the recent separation of its upstream energy business ChampionX, Ecolab remains the market leader in a large and highly fragmented industry. We believe the company will continue to expand its position organically and through acquisitions. Ecolab has consistently generated solid EBITDA margins at or above 20%. The diversified and stable portfolio of products and services support this pattern. The...

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