Ecolab (ECL) Q2 2026: $4.75B CoolIT Bet, Net Income +2%
Ecolab's core business is running well enough to carry the debt it just took on — but the financing bill has already started to show up in earnings. Second-quarter net sales rose 9.7% to $4,415.4 million, yet net income attributable to Ecolab climbed only 2.0% to $534.9 million, because higher interest expense and a higher tax rate absorbed almost the entire operating gain. Sitting on the June 30 balance sheet was $5,135.3 million of cash — money raised in May and paid out on July 2 for CoolIT Systems, a data center liquid cooling business bought for $4.75 billion. This is a quarter-end snapshot taken mid-transaction: the debt is already on the books, the acquired business is not.
1. Consolidated Balance Sheet
1-1. Major asset movements
| Item | Dec 31, 2025 ($M) | Jun 30, 2026 ($M) | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash and cash equivalents | 646.2 | 5,135.3 | +694.7% |
| Accounts receivable, net | 3,249.4 | 3,452.7 | +6.3% |
| Inventories | 1,490.4 | 1,643.9 | +10.3% |
| Property, plant and equipment, net | 4,276.6 | 4,445.8 | +4.0% |
| Goodwill | 9,227.0 | 9,419.3 | +2.1% |
| Other intangible assets, net | 3,688.5 | 3,449.1 | -6.5% |
| Total assets | 24,696.3 | 29,927.0 | +21.2% |
The $5.2 billion increase in total assets is almost entirely one line: cash. Ecolab issued $5.0 billion of senior notes in May 2026 to pre-fund the CoolIT purchase, and the proceeds sat in cash for roughly six weeks until the deal closed on July 2.
Strip that out and the operating balance sheet is unremarkable, which is the point. Receivables rose 6.3% and inventories 10.3% over the six months, both broadly tracking the business. Working-capital efficiency was essentially unchanged rather than improved: on a like-for-like basis (period sales annualized) days sales outstanding was roughly 74 days at both year-end and June 30. Inventory days were similarly stable at about 61. Ecolab reports inventories using LIFO (last-in, first-out) for part of its stock; the FIFO-to-LIFO difference widened from $92.0 million to $101.8 million, so the balance sheet understates replacement cost by that amount. This makes direct inventory comparisons against IFRS-reporting peers unreliable, since IFRS prohibits LIFO.
