Ecolab (NYSE: ECL) reported Q3 EPS of $1.38, $0.02 worse than the analyst estimate of $1.40. Revenue for the quarter came in at $3.32 billion versus the consensus estimate of $3.3 billion.

2021 Business Outlook:

We expect continued, if uneven, recovery in the U.S. and European markets, with the rest of the world following. We continue to expect strong year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter 2021 led by increased volume and price momentum, and expect these drivers to result in the fourth quarter showing better year-over-year sales growth than the third quarter. At the same time, we have experienced substantial additional delivered product and other cost inflation that we believe will increase fourth quarter costs nearly $0.20 per share (which includes an estimated $0.04 impact from Hurricane Ida) versus what we expected a few months ago. We expect fourth quarter earnings to grow double digits, though not as strongly as the third quarter. We continue to expect the full year 2021 to show a strong earnings increase over 2020, more than offsetting the substantial delivered product and other cost increases which we estimate will reach a combined unfavorable impact approximating $0.90 per share this year; this includes estimated unfavorable impacts of $0.15 from the Texas freeze and $0.07 from Hurricane Ida, costs we have mostly mitigated through pricing and productivity gains.

We believe our value proposition to help customers address major challenges around people and planet health while improving their own business performance is stronger than ever. We have accelerated our pricing and expect to more than cover the substantial delivered product cost and other cost increases, our new business and innovation pipelines are at record levels; new focus areas, including life sciences, data centers and animal health, are well-positioned to drive growth and global leadership; and our leading digital capabilities continue to develop and add competitive advantage. Our strong business momentum, along with our enhanced value proposition and favorable macro trends, positions us well to leverage the global recovery post-COVID and our long-term fundamentals remain strong to deliver further superior shareholder returns.

For earnings history and earnings-related data on Ecolab (ECL) click here.