Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Purchased by Arizona State Retirement System

Arizona State Retirement System lifted its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 0.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 8,929 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 70 shares during the quarter. Arizona State Retirement System’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $2,608,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Ballentine Partners LLC boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 3.9% in the 4th quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 911 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $266,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 4,142 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,210,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Versant Capital Management Inc boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 16.3% in the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 293 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $86,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares during the period. Venturi Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 13.1% in the 4th quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 398 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $116,000 after purchasing an additional 46 shares during the period. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc lifted its position in Acuity Brands by 5.2% during the 4th quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 951 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $278,000 after acquiring an additional 47 shares during the period. 98.21% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AYI has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Oppenheimer increased 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. StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 1st. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of AYI stock opened at $268.28 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $8.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $314.05 and a 200-day simple moving average of $302.70. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12-month low of $217.64 and a 12-month high of $345.30. 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, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.72 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast 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. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.25%. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is 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.