SVB Wealth LLC Acquires New Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

SVB Wealth LLC bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm bought 2,421 shares of the electronics maker’s stock, valued at approximately $707,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Illumine Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $784,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. lifted its position in Acuity Brands by 6.6% in the 4th quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 8,508 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $2,485,000 after acquiring an additional 524 shares in the last quarter. Versor Investments LP acquired a new position in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth $474,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC bought a new position in Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter worth about $10,412,000. Finally, Los Angeles Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 8.3% in the 4th quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 6,092 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,780,000 after purchasing an additional 467 shares during the period. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

NYSE AYI opened at $284.51 on Tuesday. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $316.45 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $301.44. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1 year low of $217.64 and a 1 year high of $345.30. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. Acuity Brands’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.72 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.24%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

About Acuity Brands

Acuity Brands, Inc provides lighting, lighting controls, building management system, location-aware applications in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Acuity Brands Lighting and Lighting Controls (ABL); and the Intelligent Spaces Group (ISG). The ABL segment provides commercial, architectural, and specialty lighting solutions, as well as lighting controls and components for various indoor and outdoor applications under the A-Light, Aculux, American Electric Lighting, Cyclone, Dark to Light, eldoLED, Eureka, Gotham, Healthcare Lighting, Holophane, Hydrel, Indy, IOTA, Juno, Lithonia Lighting, Luminaire LED, Luminis, Mark Architectural Lighting, nLight, OPTOTRONIC, Peerless, RELOCWiring Solutions, and Sensor Switch.