Amalgamated Bank Cuts Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Amalgamated Bank decreased its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 0.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 14,901 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 104 shares during the period. Amalgamated Bank’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $4,353,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. BankPlus Trust Department purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at about $69,000. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at about $554,000. Allianz Asset Management GmbH lifted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.4% in the 4th quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 152,187 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $44,458,000 after acquiring an additional 3,589 shares during the last quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB lifted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 64.3% in the 4th quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB now owns 4,600 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,344,000 after acquiring an additional 1,800 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ieq Capital LLC bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at about $3,998,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of AYI stock opened at $296.94 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $9.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.87, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. The company’s 50 day moving average is $316.80 and its 200 day moving average is $300.14. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 52-week low of $217.64 and a 52-week high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.72 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.23%. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. 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.