From Taming The Data Monster To Delivering Efficiency

Research evidence excerpt

From Taming The Data Monster To Delivering Efficiency

operations, which increase

stickiness and customer lifetime value. Kitchen IQ, now a $100m program, integrates food expiry

labeling, food waste analytics, equipment monitoring, and predictive maintenance into a unified

platform, while Dish IQ improves warewashing throughput by ~20% through real-time monitoring

and automation. Ecolab's Pest Intelligence platform recently helped one large food retail customer

achieve a ~50% reduction in pest-related issues and $7m-$8m in savings. Ecolab's program for

a 700-location restaurant chain delivered ~$10m in customer value, including ~$3m in savings, a

~4% improvement in customer review scores, and the reallocation of ~685k labor hours to higher-

value tasks.

Costs Surge, Prices Catch Up in 2H: Commodity/energy costs are 9% higher, but Ecolab has

navigated more severe inflationary environments in prior cycles (e.g., ~50% commodity inflation in

2022), during which margins expanded. Surcharges implemented on April 1 will be evident by 2H26.

Ecolab's value-led approach likely supports 2-3% in annual price realization and should help the

company largely outpace cost inflation. We estimate an average 20% EBIT margin in 2026-2028.

Accounting for the CoolIT Acquisition: The recently announced acquisition of CoolIT (Q3 close

expected) will augment growth with data centers. While the acquisition will expand margins over the

next several years, financing and amortization costs are pegged at ~$0.20 quarterly in 2H26-2027. Laurence Alexander * | Equity Analyst

We lower our price target to $345 (from $352 previously) to reflect our lower 2028E EPS estimates. (212) 284-2553 | lalexander@jefferies.com

Daniel Rizzo * | Equity Analyst

(212) 336-6284 | drizzo@jefferies.com