Ecolab Q4 2021 Earnings Results & Report

Ecolab EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.28
• Consensus EPS: $1.27
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.23
• EPS Beat Rate: 3 of last 8 quarters

Ecolab Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $3.36 billion
• Expected Revenue: $3.36 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$4.10 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +9.80%

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) (NYSE:ECL) is a global provider of water, hygiene, infection prevention and related services. The company helps businesses maintain clean, safe and efficient operations through specialized products, technologies, equipment and on-site expertise.

Its offerings include cleaning and sanitizing solutions, water treatment and process-management systems, food safety programs, infection prevention products, pest elimination services and solutions for industrial operations. Ecolab serves customers in industries including hospitality, healthcare, food and beverage production, life sciences, manufacturing, energy, retail and institutional services.

The company was founded in 1923 as Economics Laboratory and adopted the Ecolab name in 1986. Ecolab serves customers internationally through operations and field teams across numerous regions. Christophe Beck has served as the company’s president and chief executive officer since 2022.

Ecolab Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Ecolab achieved strong Q4 sales and full-year earnings growth, driven by accelerated pricing, business wins and product innovation despite COVID impacts.
• An unprecedented ~20% increase in delivered product cost and supply constraints in Q4, plus ~10% raw material and freight inflation in 2021 (rising to ~15% in 2022), represents a significant headwind.
• The company plans 5%–6% pricing in 2022 and expects to more than offset higher costs through productivity and cost reductions to deliver low-teens EPS growth.
• New business wins and an innovation pipeline are at record levels, with Ecolab Science certified, net-zero and digital capabilities further differentiating its value proposition.

Presentation

[Operator]

Greetings, and welcome to the Ecolab Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero from your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. At this time, it is now my pleasure to introduce Mike Monahan, Senior Vice President, External Relations. Mr. Monahan, you may now begin.

[Mike Monahan, Senior VP of External Relations at Ecolab]

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Ecolab's fourth quarter conference call. With me today are Christophe Beck, Ecolab's CEO, and Scott Kirkland, our new CFO. A discussion of our results, along with our earnings release and the slides referencing the quarter's results, are available on Ecolab's website at ecolab.com/investor. Please take a moment to read the cautionary statements in these materials, which state that this teleconference and the associated supplemental materials include estimates of future performance. These are forward-looking statements, and actual results could differ materially from those projected. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are described under the Risk Factors section in our most recent Form 10-K and in our posted materials. We also refer you to the supplemental diluted earnings per share information in the release.

[Mike Monahan, Senior VP of External Relations at Ecolab]

Starting with a brief overview, the strong fourth quarter sales were driven by accelerated pricing, business wins, and product innovation, with double-digit gains in our Institutional Specialty and Other segments, as well as continued strong growth in the Industrial segment. These were partially offset by negative COVID-related effects on business activity and an unprecedented estimated 20% increase in year-over-year delivered product cost and supply constraints in the quarter. We closed out a challenging year in 2021, in which we invested in key business drivers and aggressively drove pricing, innovation, and productivity. We also successfully managed through substantial supply constraints and cost increases to deliver the strong full-year earnings increase. Looking ahead, recent programs, including Ecolab Science Certified and Net-Zero, have further differentiated Ecolab's value proposition and enable us to create better customer outcomes and reduce environmental impact, all while simultaneously reducing their costs.

[Mike Monahan, Senior VP of External Relations at Ecolab]

Our new business wins and innovation pipelines are at record levels, and new market focus areas are well-positioned to drive growth, and our leading digital capabilities continue to add competitive advantage. We expect to leverage these drivers to once again drive strong sales volume and pricing gains, and along with productivity and cost reduction actions, more than offset the higher cost to yield another year of double-digit earnings growth. Our strong business momentum, along with our enhanced value proposition and favorable macro trends, position us well to leverage the post-COVID environment and deliver further superior long-term shareholder returns. Now here's Christophe Beck with his comments.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you so much, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. The fourth quarter showed once again that the global environment remains very dynamic, presenting new challenges that we've learned to turn into long-term opportunities. Our top-line momentum reached 10% or 9% organic in a constrained environment. Institutional and specialty grew 19%, Pest Elimination 10%, and industrial remained strong, growing 8% in the quarter, and our new business and innovation pipelines remain really strong. At the same time, COVID came back during the fall, especially in North America and in Europe. Well, as we all know, inflation kept rising substantially. Still, top line gained momentum, including pricing, which accelerated to 4% as we exited the quarter. This was required to compensate for significant incremental costs from supply constraints and much higher inflation pressure on our raw material and freight costs.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

These costs spiked close to 20% in the fourth quarter, nearly double the rate we saw in the third, and this being close to a total of $1 per share unfavorable impact for the full year, with almost half of that in Q4 alone. Once again, our team demonstrated our commitment to protect our customers' operations at all time and in any condition to ensure food, power, water, and healthcare supply are protected while we also keep enhancing our margins for the long run. We now enter 2022 with confidence and well aware that the environment might change, but we will keep doing our very best to stay ahead. We expect the global economy to remain strong, even if not as a perfect straight line.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

The exact timing for the end of COVID's impact remains hard to predict, but we expect it to be mostly behind us by the middle of this year. We also expect inflation to remain at a high level, at least for the first half of the year, while we expect it to ease during the second half, and we're getting ready for this too. We will keep driving growth by fueling the Institutional recovery, which is going really well, by generating strong new business, by investing in our new growth engines like Life Sciences, data centers, or microelectronics, and by making sure we remain one of the very best places to work for the most promising and diverse global talent.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

We'll keep addressing inflation by further enhancing our productivity through digital automation as we've done over the past few years, by leveraging high-margin innovation, and naturally, by accelerating our value pricing. For the full year 2022, we expect raw materials and freight costs to further increase, with inflation remaining high before it eases during the second half of the year.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Our full-year pricing expectation for 2022 is expected to be in the 5%-6% range, which combined with our steady productivity work, is expected to get ahead of inflation dollar for dollar in the first half and enhance margins in the second half of the year and certainly beyond, as the Ecolab model has proven many times. All these actions should lead to a strong 2022 with strong top line and adjusted earnings growth in the low teens% for the full year and a first quarter with very healthy sales growth and a flattish EPS as pricing keeps building fast. Finally, as we've done throughout the pandemic and against major market disruptions, we will remain focused on the future. For us, it's all about delivering long-term value to our customers and to our shareholders while managing the short term.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Our mission of protecting people and the resources vital to life is as important as it's ever been. Our opportunity has never been larger as we chase a global market that's today greater than $150 billion and growing fast. We're therefore confident that we will look back on this period and truly feel we did the right things the right way. By protecting our teams and our customers when they needed us the most, and by protecting our company in ways that made Ecolab even stronger and more relevant. As the infection prevention company, helping customers protect their customers and their businesses with Ecolab Science Certified, and as the sustainability company, helping our customers progress on their Net-Zero journey, all of which leading to strong top line and consistent, reliable double-digit EPS growth, and ultimately getting us back on our pre-COVID earnings trajectory.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

I look forward to your questions.

[Mike Monahan, Senior VP of External Relations at Ecolab]

Thanks, Christophe. That concludes our formal remarks. As a final note, before we begin Q&A, we plan to hold our annual tour of our booth at the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago on Monday, May twenty-third. If you have any questions, please contact my office. Operator, would you please begin the question and answer period?

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. We ask you please limit yourself to one question and one brief follow-up per caller so others will have a chance to participate. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, and once again, star one to ask questions. Thank you. Our first question today is from the line of Tim Mulrooney with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.

[Tim Mulrooney, Group Head of Global Services at William Blair]

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I just have two, not surprisingly, on raw materials. The first one is, you know, now that the year is complete, I was hoping we could get some numbers around raw material cost inflation. Can you tell us how much was raw material inflation in 2021? And then what is the expectation for raw material inflation in 2022 that's built into your guidance?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah, great question. Thank you, Tim. So that's the core topic, obviously, so for all of us. For us, it's raw materials and freight, as you know, that we combine, as well. If we look at 2021, it was roughly 10%, the increase we saw, in the past year, which spiked in Q4, as you've heard and read as well, so to 20%. 10% for the full year, in 2021. We expect to stay pretty high for the first half of 2022 at the same level, similar to what we've seen in Q4, and then to ease during the second half of the year, which leads to roughly 15%. 10% in 2021, roughly 15% in 2022.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Since raw materials and freight represent a quarter of our sales, roughly, our pricing plan is well aligned with that and should allow us during the first half, so to get ahead of the dollars that we get in terms of inflation and then improving the margin during the second half, assuming that the assumptions happen as planned.

[Tim Mulrooney, Group Head of Global Services at William Blair]

Yeah. Okay. You kind of started to address my second question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway in case you have anything else.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah.

[Tim Mulrooney, Group Head of Global Services at William Blair]

Just following up on that, assuming oil prices stay about where they are today, you know, would you expect all else equal to see gross margin expansion after 2022? You know, the reason I ask, I mean, if we kinda step back and we look at your gross margin, it was 44%. You know, we've seen it go from 44% down to 41% over the last few years. I'm wondering if this is kind of the new normal, this 41, 42%-ish %, or if you do expect to see normalization back to that historical average of closer to 44% over time and you know, how you plan to get there?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah, we absolutely expect to get back, over time, to where we were pre-inflation start or pre-COVID, wherever is the start, obviously. When you look back-

[Tim Mulrooney, Group Head of Global Services at William Blair]

Yeah

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

As well, taking industrial, for instance, in the past years, look at the operating income performance, the margin performance they had in 2020, which was north of 20%, and that was really as an outcome of all the work they did in pricing and a raw material market that trended towards lower level, as such. Very good performance in 2020. That's a perfect example of what's gonna happen in the future. Exactly when, I don't know, Tim, but we expect improvement in the second half of 2022 and definitely over time to get back to where we were and go beyond that, as well.

[Tim Mulrooney, Group Head of Global Services at William Blair]

That's helpful. Thank you.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you, Tim.

[Operator]

Our next question is from the line of Manav Patnaik with Barclays.

[Manav Patnaik, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Thank you. Christophe, I was just hoping, you know, just thinking a little bit more towards the longer term growth trajectory, like ex reopening, you know, the whole hygiene and sanitization theme, you know, which is supposed to be elevated, and that's why you have the Ecolab Science Certified. Maybe could you give us some numbers around, you know, what that looked like in 2021 and, you know, will it be elevated pre-pandemic now, or how do you guys think about that?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah, good question, Manav. It's gonna be higher than 2019, which means pre-COVID, but it's gonna be lower than during COVID, for sure. In 2021, sanitizing sales were close to a double-digit increase versus 2019, and I think it's gonna remain at that elevated level for the foreseeable future. Especially with our Ecolab Science Certified program, which is going really, really well, customers will use higher level of hygiene going forward, especially because their guests and customers are expecting more of it as well.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Some of the ease that we've seen in 2021 was also related to the fact that restaurants and hotels had limited staffing as well, so to do all the cleaning and sanitization, which has probably pressured a little bit the sanitizing sales but still saw quite hefty versus 2019 as mentioned, so close to double-digit and expected to continue on that trend in the years to come.

[Manav Patnaik, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Got it. Appreciate that. You know, you guys have obviously done a relatively good job here in managing all the cost inflations. I suspect, you know, a lot of your competitors might be, you know, struggling more. My question is more, does that mean you have a greater potential M&A pipeline that you could be executing on, or are you not looking at it that way?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Well, we usually focus in terms of M&A, Manav, on very good strong companies. We're not looking first and foremost at companies that are not doing that great. I would not exclude that. You're right that we are in a very good position. You've seen our pricing evolution, so exiting the Q4 with 4% and confident in 2022, so to get to 5%-6% as well. That's demonstrating the value that we can create. If we do that over time as we always do it, Manav, in our company, it's to make sure that we can keep those customers for the long term as well, which is gonna improve our competitive situation.

[Manav Patnaik, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Got it. Thank you, Christophe.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you, Manav.

[Operator]

Our next questions are from the line of Chris Parkinson with Mizuho.

[Chris Parkinson, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Mizuho]

Great. Thank you so much. Just as difficult as it is to discuss anything normalized these days, just how should investors be conceptualizing your true earnings power in terms of, let's say, the eventual raw material moderation, you know, put together with, you know, I'd say continuing pricing momentum, transportation, logistics and labor, just all in the context of, let's say, end markets rebounding in 2022 and 2023 and market share gains. You've already spoken about GM normality, but just how should we think about this, you know, in terms of earnings power for 2023, 2024, and are there any extra considerations I didn't mention? Thank you.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah, thanks for your question, Chris. Yeah, long term, I feel quite confident that we're gonna get back to this pre-COVID earnings trajectory, for a few reasons. The first one, Institutional is gonna keep recovering, and it's one of our highest margin businesses. Just from a business mix perspective, things are gonna improve, obviously, as well. We have Industrial that's gonna keep growing fast, and that's creating leverage as well in terms of absorption that we have. You mentioned obviously the price versus inflation. We've demonstrated that over and over over our history as a company that during those inflationary periods, well, we end up with a gross margin that's higher than where it was prior to that cycle as well.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

You add businesses like Purolite, which are very high margin and growing very fast, as well. Last but not least, all the work that we've done in terms of digital productivity, automation of transactional work, that's gonna help our SG&A improvement as well in the years to come. You bring all that together, those are all positive drivers for our margins improvements.

[Chris Parkinson, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Mizuho]

That's helpful. Just as a quick follow-up, you know, the last several, you know, earnings releases, I mean, even through the difficult times of COVID, you've been mentioning market share gains fairly consistently. You know, as we stand here today, the beginning of 2022, can you just give us a quick update on, you know, the market share gains by segment, where you've been pleasantly surprised, even perhaps disappointed based on your perceived opportunities, and just how you'd expect, you know, your new baseline to generate incremental earnings power over the next few years? Thank you.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah. The question on market share is always a good one, so different by business. If you think about it growing 10% in the fourth quarter, that's faster than the general economic environment. Just macro, it's indicating that we're gaining shares on average. If you take Institutional, for instance, and taking the big example of restaurants in the U.S., in Q4, our business was 9% down or 91% of 2019 when the traffic in dining rooms, which is the most important for us, was down 33% versus 2019. That's obviously showing how much market share we've gained.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

In Industrial, the 7%-8% growth that we have, well, it's a combination of very different businesses, where you have paper 15%+, that's definitely a place where we gain a lot of share. You take data centers as well, where we're growing extremely fast as well, with the objective to be really sort of the best player in that market as well, long term. Life Sciences especially as well, so with Purolite, where we're growing faster than most of our competitors out there, always difficult to compare. You look at it macro, Chris, with the 10% faster than general economic growth, that leads to good share increases and examples like the one I just mentioned.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

There are good indications as well that our position is improving over time.

[Chris Parkinson, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Mizuho]

Thank you as always.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you, Chris.

[Operator]

Next question is coming from the line of John McNulty with BMO Capital Markets.

[John McNulty, Managing Director and Chemicals Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Can you speak to how you're dealing with wage inflation? It seems like there's kind of two different angles to it. One, that it's nicking your customers where maybe you can be helpful and come up with incremental solutions for them. But I would think given the number of feet on the street that you have as well, it's something you have to deal with internally. Can you kind of speak to the pressure that you're gonna face and how maybe you can offset that with revenue coming in by helping out your customers?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

As you mentioned, John, we look at it in both ways. First, how do we help our customers who do not only have a wage inflation issue, but they have a hard time to find people as we know in restaurants and in hotels, less people, more expensive. Our solutions that are automating a lot of the cleaning work, sanitation work that they need to do is helping obviously customers, and that's one of the reasons why we're growing nicely in those markets. Now back to our own wages. The way I look at it is in a reasonable way. For 2022, we're trying to stay competitive with the rest of the market.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Our retention of our talent in the company has been very strong over the last two years when many have been struggling as well. That's indicating that we're doing more right than not in terms of how we're managing as well wages. Last but not least, we always make sure that we focus on our key talent and those ones we support them very specifically in making sure that they stay happy and stay longer in our company. The last point, just to get back to your question as well on productivity, the whole digital work that we've done over the last many years is really paying off. You see it in our SG&A improvement that's improving year in and year out.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

That's gonna help mitigate, as well, the wage inflation that we will face as well. Net-net, a good story.

[John McNulty, Managing Director and Chemicals Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Got it. No, that's helpful. Maybe just from a little bit more color on the raw material side. It sounds like you think raw materials and freight are gonna come off in the back half of the year. I guess, can you give us a little bit more granularity or quantify how much you think it's or how much of a decline you kind of modeled in when you're looking for these low teens EPS growth for 2022?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

You know, the best way to look at it is basically that the first half should be very similar to what we've seen in the fourth quarter. The 20% that we've talked about is roughly what we're expecting as well. For the first half of 2022 and we expect that the rate of growth for the second half of the year to be, I don't know, half of that. You compare to a high base obviously. It's not going positive in terms of dollars, it's just the rate of growth is getting lower. We know it's gonna go down, John, at some point. The only question is when.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

The good news with Ecolab is that the moment that inflation eases and goes down, that's where we create the best margins enhancement as we've demonstrated in industrial in 2020.

[John McNulty, Managing Director and Chemicals Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Got it. Just to be clear, the cost you're assuming they don't go down in the back half of the year. You're assuming the trajectory slows. Am I understanding that right?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Exactly, yes, John. As mentioned earlier on with Tim, it's expecting kind of 10% we had last year on raw materials and freight cost inflation, and we expect to go up to 15% for the full year in 2022. That's the way we assume it right now.

[John McNulty, Managing Director and Chemicals Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Got it. Thanks very much for the color.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you, John.

[Operator]

Our next question is from the line of Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley.

[Vincent Andrews, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Thank you. Could you maybe just expand on the raws and freight a little bit just in terms of what the breakdown is in terms of the increase you were seeing in the fourth quarter and continuing to this year? How much of it is incremental on the raw side versus the freight and logistics and COVID disruption? Also maybe speak to if there's any change in the mix of raws that are giving you problems.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

It's not giving us problems. It was in 2021, Vincent. Three-quarters roughly of the inflation pressure was in Industrial. That's evolving as well because it's not always the same raw materials that are increasing across our businesses and in the various geographies as well at the same time. In a way, this is a good thing. It's becoming more spread out across the businesses and geographies, not just Industrial, especially North America. Freight is becoming the new drivers of our cost inflation as everybody knows out there. This is not specific to us as well. That's the new one that we need to deal with.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

The very good news on this one is, on one hand, we're well-organized on the logistics side. We have a lot of former Amazon people as well, so leading our logistics, that helps. We've engaged as well over the last 12 months and even more in 2022 as well, new logistics policies, surcharges, making sure that we not only optimize our logistics but get paid as well, so for any increase that we might have.

[Vincent Andrews, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Okay. Could you maybe just give us your outlook for this year in Healthcare and Life Sciences?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

You mean, Vincent, our outlook in terms of what?

[Vincent Andrews, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Just in terms of how you expect the business to perform as we move through the year.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Ahh. Like that. Okay. As we've shared, generally, we're entering 2022, so in a very good position in terms of business momentum. The 10% that we've delivered in the fourth quarter is something that we expect to kind of stay quite steady over 2022. The mix between volume and pricing obviously is gonna evolve since we're gonna move pricing closer to 5%-6%, as mentioned as well. Kind of a steady, good momentum, and for the EPS growth, as mentioned. We expect to be in the low teens for the full year.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

The first half is gonna be so more on the lower side, and the second half is gonna be on the higher side of the 10, because of the margin improvement driven by pricing going steadily up and inflation easing, as I just mentioned before with John.

[Vincent Andrews, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you, Vincent.

[Operator]

Our next question is from the line of John Roberts with UBS.

[John Roberts, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

Welcome, Scott, and congratulations, Christophe, on the Barron's 100 sustainability ranking.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you, John.

[John Roberts, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

Are you still adding new signups for Ecolab Science Certified, or you just enjoying the benefits of everybody who signed up early on? I don't know if there's fatigue out there as this goes on that there's less interest in signing up for the new programs.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

No, we don't really see any slowdown on that front, which is a good sign. It's even taken time, interestingly enough, so for many customers to kind of get on board really understanding what it would mean for their own brand. McDonald's has been a perfect example, as well, wanting to make sure that it was right for them, it was supporting their brand the right way, that it was well perceived with their guests as well. They came fairly late in the COVID journey, if I may say. If anything, it's more interest, not less interest, which is encouraging because to your point, John, we thought that it would be mostly COVID related.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

No, it's becoming more interesting, so for restaurants, hotels, offices, to make sure that the places where they welcome people are safe and healthy.

[John Roberts, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

Thank you.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you, John.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Ashish Sabadra with RBC.

[Ashish Sabadra, Business, Education, and Professional Services Analyst at RBC]

Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to focus on water, which continues to show really strong momentum, delivering another solid 8% growth in the fourth quarter. How should we think about that momentum going into 2022? Thanks.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Well, I'm a bit passionate about water. I've been leading the business for quite a while, Ashish. This is something that I believe we are uniquely positioned here to keep growing for two reasons. On one hand, well, or three reasons. On one hand, water scarcity becomes a bigger issue because we're not gonna get more water on Earth, but we're gonna use more water as well going forward. That's the first point. Second, you have always more companies committing to Net-Zero carbon and water by 2050, getting half there, so by 2030 or whatever the commitment that they have, not only because it's good for water, but if you save water, you save energy as well at the same time.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Always more companies are realizing that they can get, well, both benefits, less issues from a water perspective and reducing the carbon footprint the same time. The only one who can really help companies get to the Net-Zero, which is kind of a new trend, which is great for us. The last point I'd mention is that, well, we're probably the only company that can do it at a very high margin as well at the same time, because we bring so much science, expertise, and digital technology as well in there. Bringing all three together, water scarcity, need for Net-Zero, and the fact that we can do it at high margin makes me really bullish for that business going forward.

[Ashish Sabadra, Business, Education, and Professional Services Analyst at RBC]

That's very helpful, color. Maybe if I can just ask a quick follow-up on the commercial Pest Elimination business.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah.

[Ashish Sabadra, Analyst at RBC]

Again, a small business, but has been a strong growth engine for you. With one, particularly one of the large players in commercial pest control getting acquired, how do you think about the competitive environment changing going forward? Separately, would you also consider potential M&As to expand your position in the commercial pest control? Thanks.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Maybe to your point of a fairly small business, it's almost $1 billion for us, so it's quite significant. It's extremely profitable, and it's growing really fast. It grew 10% during the fourth quarter, and it's been growing during COVID as well. Just to show the resilience, the strength of that business. The other thing I really like with Pest is that it's a perfect complement to everything else that we do. In a hospital, when you think about infection prevention, well, you need to eliminate pests. In a food and beverage plant, you need to bring Pest Elimination as well, so to make sure that you do not create food safety issue. The same in a hotel, the same in a restaurant.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

It's a perfect fit to our value proposition as a company. To your point in terms of M&A, while one of our competitors are getting into a big M&A now, means a lot of distractions for them, a company that we respect a lot, by the way. When they're busy doing integration, those are the best times for us ultimately to gain share. In terms of us doing M&A in the Pest Elimination field, we don't comment in details, but we're definitely open to consider as well as we have in the past, we will in the future as well, in businesses that are so valuable for us.

[Ashish Sabadra, Business, Education, and Professional Services Analyst at RBC]

That's very helpful, Christophe Beck. Thank you. Thanks.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you, Ashish.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Laurence Alexander with Jefferies.

[Laurence Alexander, Equity Analyst at Jefferies]

Good morning. I guess two questions about sort of lag effects. The first is, with all the volatility that we've seen the last couple of years and how Ecolab has improved their portfolio, should your pace of share gains pick up over the next couple of years as customers recalibrate and you know, sort of are able to you know, in a more stable environment, sort of reassess kind of your relative position versus peers? And secondly, from the sounds of it, if we factor in the water and the productivity and the digitalization and some of the other initiatives you've mentioned, should your top line growth be faster than in the last, say, 10- or 15-year period? And can the pace of productivity gains improve compared to the last decade or so?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Great question. I see three big questions all related, obviously, here. I'll try to be as succinct as I can on that. First in terms of share, as mentioned before, the fact that we're growing fast in most of our businesses. It's not just one business that's growing and all the other ones are going slow is a good indication that we're gaining share. Obviously, once the whole craziness of the world is behind us, that's gonna pay dividend as well because we're gonna be in an even stronger position afterwards. It's always been the focus for us. We have this mantra in the company, you know, "In doubt, go and sell something," which is pretty useful in those unpredictable times.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Well, that's gonna pay dividend for the future. I feel good about that. Which leads me to your second question in terms of top-line momentum. Yes, I firmly believe that the growth that we will see in the years to come is gonna be ahead of the growth that we've seen pre-COVID, if there's any such thing, as well. In terms of productivity, with all the investments that we've made in ERP technology, in field technology, in remote monitoring for our customers, in AI, all that is not only pay dividend right now, as you can see as well over the past few years, our SG&A productivity has improved, but I believe it's gonna improve even better in the future as well.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

When you bring all three together, I think it should lead to a performance that's ahead of what we've seen pre-COVID.

[Laurence Alexander, Equity Analyst at Jefferies]

Thank you.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Scott Schneeberger with Oppenheimer.

[Scott Schneeberger, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Thanks very much. I think I'll bring Scott in on the first one. CapEx increased as a percent of revenue in 2021, probably pretty logical given the environment, but it's still below the 6% level seen pre-pandemic. Where do you see CapEx in 2022 and perhaps beyond, and some major categories of spend going forward? Thanks.

[Scott Kirkland, CFO at Ecolab]

Yeah. Hi, Scott. Thanks for the question. Yeah, it certainly was lower. As you know of our historical range, we've been around 6% of sales on CapEx. During, as sales have been lower relative to 2019, there's a big portion of our CapEx that's in merchandising equipment with customers. As the customer rebounds come back, expect that CapEx to be similar to those historical trends around 6%.

[Scott Schneeberger, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Great. Thanks for that, Scott. Christophe, just high level, or perhaps both of you,

[Scott Schneeberger, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

You know, it's been a while since there's been discussion of the efficiency initiative and kind of the overriding long-term theme of cost savings. It's been, you know, a tumultuous time period. Just curious, how are you progressing on that? How should we be looking at that, as we approach the end of 2022 and 2023? Thanks.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Let me make a quick comment on this one, and I'll pass it back to Scott, who has the details here. The efficiency initiatives that we've had over the past few years have progressed really well. Let's keep in mind that those initiatives were not pure cost savings initiatives. Those were initiatives that were leveraging all the investments that we had made in the past in ERP technology, in digital technology, and all that. As I've mentioned before, not only it's delivered great results so far, I think it's gonna give even better margin improvement as well going forward. It's not something that we're gonna stop doing, but we're gonna do that in a more organic way going forward.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

With that, Scott, maybe a few comments on that.

[Scott Kirkland, CFO at Ecolab]

Sure. Thanks, Christophe. Yeah, as Christophe said, we've progressed very well on it. If we think about the two big programs, and we have programs going on all the time, but the two big programs, the APEX 2020 and the Institutional Advancement Program, through the end of 2021, we were north of 90% complete from a savings and cost perspective on both of those, and we'll have a little bit of a tail into 2022 and 2023 to wrap up those programs.

[Scott Schneeberger, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Excellent. Thank you both for the color.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Steve Byrne with Bank of America.

[Steve Byrne, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Yes, thank you. You've had Purolite now a couple of months. How do you view the expectations about profitability from that business relative to what you know previously had in both Industrial business, wallet share gains, and on the Life Sciences? Anything that has changed your outlook on that?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

No, we're really happy. With that acquisition, as you mentioned, we're kind of two months in, so we're really at the beginning. Our first objective was really to do no harm, and making sure that they can keep growing as they have in the past and they're doing really well. We're not working on any significant integration because it's not a synergy play or a cost synergy play. It's purely a growth synergy that we see. The biggest challenge that we have, which is an interesting challenge, is that we need to keep building enough manufacturing capacity in order to keep growing, which is a challenge that the whole industry is having. We are ahead, which is good.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

We have two expansions, a new plant in the U.S. and expansion in the U.K., that's supposed to be coming online as well in the first half of 2022. That's gonna give as well an inflection point for the second half. So far, really happy with what we're seeing with Purolite.

[Steve Byrne, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

One quick follow-up on that one. Do you expect operating results out of that business to more than offset the amortization expense, or do you think you will, you know, change your view and not include amortization in your adjusted earnings? If you don't mind, can you also comment on what is the average number of months between your purchases of raw materials and when it flows through COGS?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

On the question on amortization, we've been so very clear on how we see 2022 to be neutral, obviously related to the first question since business is evolving as expected. The neutral is gonna happen as well in 2022. It's important to keep in mind that the amortization is $0.26 in 2022, so it's relevant. It's all cash that's coming, obviously since the amortization is a non-cash item, as well as such. We're looking at what other companies are also doing in Life Sciences arena, and it's usually handled differently than what we've done in the past. I'm not indicating that we're gonna change anything, but we're gonna share with you how much is the amortization.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

At the same time, you know, what's the true cash return of that business, since we wanna know it as well.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Wittmann with Baird.

[Andrew Wittmann, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Great. Thanks for taking my question, guys. I guess I just wanted to start out with a two-part question on the revenue outlook. I think I just wanted to clarify the first part here. Christophe, in your prepared remarks, I think you said the pricing was gonna be 5%-6% for the year, and I think in your Q&A, you mentioned that pricing would ramp to 5% or 6%. I guess the question I wanted to clarify is if it's gonna be 5%-6% for the year, presumably 4% for the fourth quarter, I would suggest that the exit rate in Q4 could be above 6%. Could you just clarify the cadence throughout the year that gets you to the 5%-6%?

[Andrew Wittmann, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Maybe for Scott, could you talk about what FX could mean to your revenue performance or growth here in 2022 with current rates where they are?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Andrew, I'll take the first one, and I'll give the FX to Scott. On pricing, it's as mentioned, so we're exiting the fourth quarter at 4%, moving towards 5% for the first quarter and for the full year, being between 5% and 6%. It's pretty steady, and that's our current plan, considering all we know in terms of inflation. As mentioned before, raw materials and freight inflation are not dealt with exactly the same way, but relatively steady, so between 4% and 6% during 2022, which leads to this average of 5%-6%, ultimately. Scott on-

[Scott Kirkland, CFO at Ecolab]

The FX.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah.

[Scott Kirkland, CFO at Ecolab]

Yeah. Certainly. Yeah, as you might expect, just given where rates are going in the U.S., the expected increases during the year, we will have some drag as a result of FX, you know, probably in that $0.10 range in 2022.

[Andrew Wittmann, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Okay.

[Andrew Wittmann, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Then I guess I wanted to just ask on a follow-up here just regarding the special gains and charges that we expect here, that you expect in 2022. You kind of mentioned that you're 90% done with the programs, you know, Purolite, I guess, because it's not an integration cost synergy play, shouldn't have too much there, I don't think. And then now the other big bucket looks like the COVID costs in 2021 were notable, but with COVID subsiding and, you know, just life getting used to COVID, it kind of feels like the special gains and charges should be less in 2022. Am I thinking about that the right way, Scott? Or are there other things that I should be considering in that? Yeah.

[Scott Kirkland, CFO at Ecolab]

As you talk about the big buckets, there will be ongoing special charges with Purolite next year, but we did have the big impact from the purchase accounting include the inventory step up in 2021. As it relates to 2022, as you think about, as you mentioned COVID, the COVID really had a couple big buckets in it, and it was pay protection was a large piece of that. We also had the inventory reserve that we disclosed. And the pay protection, as you know, can't predict how COVID's gonna react, but expect that variable pay protection to be less in 2022. We also had some medical costs in testings.

[Scott Kirkland, CFO at Ecolab]

There will be a little bit of a tail on that, I expect, but given our pace of COVID, we expect that to be less in 2022 than it was in 2021.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you very much. Have a good day. Thank you, Andrew.

[Operator]

Our next question is coming from the line of Rosemarie Morbelli with Gabelli.

[Rosemarie Morbelli, Senior VP and Research Analyst at Gabelli]

Good morning, everyone. Bonjour, Christophe.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Bonjour, Rosemarie.

[Rosemarie Morbelli, Senior VP and Research Analyst at Gabelli]

I was wondering if you could touch on Russia and Ukraine. How much of an impact, let's say that we go to war, which we probably won't, but nevertheless, how large are those two regions for your business?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah. Well, I hope that nothing is gonna happen, obviously. Too many human lives would be impacted. For us, it's a reasonably small business. It used to be much bigger when we had upstream energy, as you know, and today, it's less than half a percent, so for the whole company. For us, it's not so much a business issue. It could have an impact on energy costs, but that's an indirect impact. For us, obviously, as a people company, it's making sure that everyone from our team is in a good place. Unfortunately, we have some experience a few years back when Crimea was in focus and we've managed that really well. We have a good team, even if it's a small one.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Rosemarie, no big business impact, maybe on energy, and we wanna make sure that our team is doing well.

[Rosemarie Morbelli, Senior VP and Research Analyst at Gabelli]

Okay. That is great. Thank you. I was surprised by the double-digit growth in Institutional considering that there is COVID, that not everyone is back on the road, we still have masks, not a lot of people are going to a hotel. Can you give us a little more detail as to why that performance was impressive?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Well, it's a good business, which is really in leading positions. That helps. We haven't lost customers. We have roughly the same number of units as well than we had pre-COVID. They're buying a similar number of solutions as well. We have a lot of new business as well that we've acquired. They've been extremely good during the COVID times in new business generation. Pricing has been good as well. Ecolab Science Certified has been good as well. Customers have needed us more than ever during COVID. As they reopen, we keep growing. Honestly, Rosemarie, we were expecting in Q4 to grow even faster, except that Omicron changed the plans a little bit, and it stalled at the Q3 level of growth.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

That's gonna come when hopefully COVID is gonna move behind us. I'm really confident on that business going forward.

[Rosemarie Morbelli, Senior VP and Research Analyst at Gabelli]

Oh, great. Thanks. If I may, your SG&A ratio was some 32.6% in 2017 or thereabout. Obviously, you have made progress as it is down to 28% in 2020, and you talked about the factors that are, you know, going to impact this ratio. How low do you think is reasonable to think you can go as a ratio to sales?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

It's a great question. Well, it's not gonna reach zero, that I'm sure.

[Rosemarie Morbelli, Senior VP and Research Analyst at Gabelli]

Mm-hmm.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

It's gonna be better than where we are today. You know, keep in mind that we have a very large sales team. They drive a lot, for instance, to go and visit our 3 million customers around the world. Digital technology is helping us managing and serving customers remotely as well. That reduces the time that our teams need to travel. That improves, obviously, the SG&A productivity. They do a lot of prep work, preparation work, so before they go and meet customers or after they've met customers in order to make sure that head office knows the value that's been created. That's getting automated as we speak.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

With automation and such a large team, I think that we still have a lot of potential, not only to improve the productivity, but making sure that our teams, Rosemarie, are focused on creating value for our customers instead of moving papers, collecting data or driving on the road.

[Rosemarie Morbelli, Senior VP and Research Analyst at Gabelli]

Okay. We can expect, I mean, reasonably speaking, maybe another 200 basis points?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

It's a great question. I don't think it's gonna be a straight line, Rosemarie, but it's gonna improve every year, and we've demonstrated that so the many past years and, it's gonna keep improving. What you've seen in the past is what you're gonna see in the future.

[Rosemarie Morbelli, Senior VP and Research Analyst at Gabelli]

All right. Great. Merci.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Merci to you, Rosemarie.

[Operator]

Our next question is from the line of Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan.

[Jeff Zekauskas, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Thanks very much. In your Industrial business, your margins were sequentially flat, and you had good volume growth. Your margins in Institutional, where you also had very good volume growth, were down, I don't know, 350 basis points. Same thing in Healthcare. You had weakness there. Why is there more margin stability in the Industrial business versus the other two? Is it that raw materials are, you know, going up less or your price pass-through is more effective? What accounts for the difference in margins between the segments on a sequential basis?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Well, the macro is basically that the share of raw materials and freight costs versus the total P&L is very different business by business. When you have inflation, the impact on the P&L and the margins is very different business by business, exactly the way you described it. Then it's the speed at which we can drive pricing is different as well. Business by business, sometimes you have group purchasing organizations. Sometimes it's individual street accounts. This is different. Those are the two main drivers, Jeff. The first one is really what's the share of raw materials and freight for the P&L?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Second, it's the speed at which we can increase prices while keeping customers for the long term as well, which is essential for us. The combination of both over time creates those distortions that you just mentioned.

[Jeff Zekauskas, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Okay. Second question is, in the institutional business in 2018, you used to make $1 billion, and now you make $566 million. When do you get back to a billion? And can you help us out with what your interest expense is for 2022 now that you've bought Purolite?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah, two questions, obviously. I leave it up to Scott for the interest piece. A very different question, obviously. In Institutional, keep in mind, Jeff, that you know, we've kept our team intentionally, and thank God we did that. When you look at restaurants and hotels today where you need to do your own housekeeping and do your bed yourself because they don't have labor to do it, we would be in a dramatic place today if we didn't keep our team in 2020, sorry, when COVID started. That was totally conscious. We said we're gonna maintain the whole team even though the business went down so quite a bit during COVID.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

That has a direct impact on our income in that business. As the business gets back to the 2019 level, which we expect to happen, this year in 2022, well, over time, you're gonna get sort of the same margins than we had before. On top of it, you get productivity gains as well that are gonna improve it. I feel really good about the trajectory that we have in Institutional. With that, maybe Scott, if you comment on interest.

[Scott Kirkland, CFO at Ecolab]

Yeah, certainly, Christophe. Jeff, answering your question on interest expense. Adjusted interest expense was just north of $180 million in 2021. As you recall, we had $2.9 billion of debt through the Purolite transactions. We'll see it about $45 million higher, call it roughly $230 million of interest expense in 2022.

[Jeff Zekauskas, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Thanks very much.

[Operator]

Our next question is from the line of Kevin McCarthy with Vertical Research Partners.

[Kevin McCarthy, Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

Good afternoon. I'd be interested to hear your updated thoughts on the subject of labor. If we think about the first half of 2022, do you think that labor-related challenges will be any better or worse or perhaps stable versus the back half of 2021? Kevin, when you say labor, you mean our labor or our customers' labor, or both?

[Kevin McCarthy, Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

I was really referring to downstream among your customers, but if you have meaningful issues internally, I'd like to hear about those as well.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah. Thank God we don't have big issues internally. We've had our share, but we've managed it really well. You've probably heard that we have over 95% of our team has been vaccinated, as well in the U.S., so it's over 18,000 people that are protected. That has helped us dramatically as well, so to keep our team operating during that time. We were in a reasonably good place internally. That's been a bit different for our customers, as we know. Distribution centers had a hard time as well, so to unload the trucks. You have retail stores that can't do the cleaning as they're supposed to be doing it.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

The same in hotels as well because they're having such a hard time to find the right talent as well to do it. It's having an impact in logistics, and it's having an impact in demand because our customers don't have the people to do the work as well. It's improving every month. Over time, it's gonna improve, but I think it's gonna take probably the whole 2022 until our customers are in a more stable place.

[Kevin McCarthy, Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

I see. Secondly, I wanted to come back to the subject of pricing.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah.

[Kevin McCarthy, Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

I think you indicated 5% for the first quarter on a glide path to 5%-6% for the year. That would imply, I think, relatively modest incremental price contributions from here. I was tempted to ask you, why not be more aggressive there, or how would you frame potential for upside to price? I appreciate you have a value and use model, but are there some combination of competitive considerations, elasticity or contract terms that would preclude a greater contribution or might you revisit, you know, depending on the cost trajectory?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Well, you've given a few answers as well at the same time. But I'd say first, when you say the 5% in Q1, it's gonna happen during Q1, as you know. Pricing is happening exactly, so as quarters evolve as well. We crossed the 4% in Q4. We will cross the 5% in Q1. When exactly? I don't know. We'll see where it nets out. For the first quarter as an individual quarter, but for the full year, we feel reasonably confident that the 5%-6% we will deliver it. That feels like the right amount of pricing in order to get our margins back to where they should be.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

To your point, if inflation happens differently than what we've assumed as I described it, in my opening remarks, well, we will adjust as we did, as well, so over the past few months. What's absolutely critical, the way we think about pricing is that we want to keep pricing for the long term. We're not a cyclical company and have no ambition to become a cyclical company, which means that when we get pricing from customers, it's based on the value that we create for them on the long run, and when inflation moves behind us, well, it sticks as well. That has an impact on the speed at which we can get pricing.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

If we were a chemical company pure play, well, we would go much faster, but we would have to give it back at some point. This is not what we do. We go slower. It's having a lower impact on margin, so for a while, but ultimately, it's paying off a big dividend on our margins. The last point I'll make is raw materials and freight for us is 25% of our sales. The inflation that you get, the 10% I talked about, so for 2021, it's on 25% of our sales. When you compare the 10% on the 25% to the pricing of 5%-6%, you get to a reasonably good place.

[Kevin McCarthy, Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

Understood. Thank you so much.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from Mike Harrison with Seaport Research Partners.

[Mike Harrison, Managing Director and Senior Chemicals Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Hi, good afternoon.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Hi, Mike.

[Mike Harrison, Managing Director and Senior Chemicals Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Christophe, you've talked a little bit about innovation in the institutional business. It's been a while since we've had the restaurant show in Chicago for you to showcase some of your new products, so I'm looking forward to that in May. Maybe give us a little bit of a preview, I guess. Are there some key products around warewashing or hard-surface sanitizing or food safety that you're excited about launching here in 2022?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Well, we do, as you know, Mike, at the same time. It's not just about products for us, it's about programs where you put all the products together. To name one in Institutional, especially driven by COVID, we brought on the market over the last 12 months a whole range of products that are killing COVID within 15 seconds. It was a remarkable achievement, especially when customers do not have the labor force, as we discussed before. To do the work, well, if it can kill effectively very quickly, this is not only good for guests, but it's good for customers as well at the same time. This whole program is very interesting, and you'll see it at the NRA.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

At the same time, I'll mention as well the Ecolab Science Certified, which brings all the programs together, in order to make sure that your guests are protected. That's a good story in terms of how many units we're getting, but you need to keep in mind that in order to be certified, you need to use all the products as well of the company. That's driving sales as well at the same time, which is good. If I fast forward to industrial, a major new program is really the so-called Ecolab Water for Climate, where customers are looking to deliver on their commitments of getting zero water or net zero water usage over time, whatever the commitment is.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

We're uniquely positioned with our Net-Zero program to help them deliver that. You won't see that at the NRA, but that's gonna be an interesting one. At the NRA, you're gonna see as well more on Purolite, which is a hell of an innovation as well, and we will cover that more when we get together.

[Mike Harrison, Managing Director and Senior Chemicals Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

All right. My other question is on the specialty business. That has historically been a very consistent high single-digit grower.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah

[Mike Harrison, Managing Director and Senior Chemicals Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

... in 2021 it declined. Can you help us frame up the dynamics that you're seeing there and maybe give us a sense of where you see volume and pricing growth in specialty in 2022?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Yeah. The specialty growth in 2021 was mostly impacted by very high comparisons in 2020 because during COVID, well, since restaurants and hotels were closed, people were going so to retailers and to a certain extent, so the takeout or drive-through from QSR. That's driven high growth during COVID and when COVID evolved from, let's say, going away, unfortunately, well, suddenly you compare to a very high comparison. But generally underlying, those are two very strong businesses that are gonna keep doing well going forward as well. QSR has been growing 8% in the fourth quarter, just to name one.

[Mike Harrison, Managing Director and Senior Chemicals Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

All right. Thank you very much.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question is from the line of Kevin McVeigh with Credit Suisse.

[Kevin McVeigh, Managing Director at Credit Suisse]

Great. Thanks so much. Hey, Christophe, I wonder, can you give some thoughts on the downstream business? Seems like it recovered a little bit in the quarter, but based on the recent pricing actions in oil, any thoughts as to that business as we move our way through 2022?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

It's a very interesting business, downstream because things are evolving. We're doing today, and even more tomorrow, some very different things than what we did in the past. In the past, in downstream was all about maximizing capacity utilization, improving the efficiency, the productivity of the assets. That was the number one focus. It hasn't gone away today, but the focus has shifted dramatically towards sustainable operations. It's turning refineries into operations that are using much less water. When you think about the refineries, so beyond crude oil, obviously that go through, the second other element is water. We're working with the supermajors to help them so get to their Net-Zero ambitions, as well, and that's totally new.

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

That had no acceptance in the past for most customers, and today this is the number one topic, and that's where we're best at as well. We can differentiate ourselves, and the good news is really that our new business is going really well in that business. A very different one going forward than what we've seen in the past, which matches much more who we are as a company and who we wanna become as well in the future.

[Kevin McVeigh, Managing Director at Credit Suisse]

Very helpful. Just real quick on what type of full service in unit traffic should we assume in the 2022 guide? I know it was about 70% of 2019 levels in Q4. How are you thinking about that over the course of 2022?

[Christophe Beck, CEO at Ecolab]

Well, it's a good and difficult question. The industry is expecting to be back towards the end of the year in restaurants and in hotels probably more the year after. We're ahead of that curve, as you mentioned, as we mentioned as well early on. I think during the second half of this year, we should be ahead quite a bit.

[Kevin McVeigh, Managing Director at Credit Suisse]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Mr. Monahan, there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.

[Mike Monahan, Senior VP of External Relations at Ecolab]

Thanks, Rob. That wraps up our fourth quarter conference call. This conference call and the associated discussion slides will be available for replay on our website. Thank you for your time and participation today, and best wishes for the rest of the day.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.

Participants

Executives

• Mike Monahan, Senior VP of External Relations
• Christophe Beck, CEO
• Scott Kirkland, CFO

Analysts

• Tim Mulrooney, Group Head of Global Services at William Blair
• Manav Patnaik, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Barclays
• Chris Parkinson, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Mizuho
• John McNulty, Managing Director and Chemicals Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
• Vincent Andrews, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley
• John Roberts, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS
• Ashish Sabadra, Business, Education, and Professional Services Analyst at RBC
• Ashish Sabadra, Analyst at RBC
• Laurence Alexander, Equity Analyst at Jefferies
• Scott Schneeberger, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer
• Steve Byrne, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America
• Andrew Wittmann, Senior Research Analyst at Baird
• Rosemarie Morbelli, Senior VP and Research Analyst at Gabelli
• Jeff Zekauskas, Analyst at JPMorgan
• Kevin McCarthy, Partner at Vertical Research Partners
• Mike Harrison, Managing Director and Senior Chemicals Analyst at Seaport Research Partners
• Kevin McVeigh, Managing Director at Credit Suisse