Great Lakes Advisors LLC Sells 2,944 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Great Lakes Advisors LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 5.3% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 52,987 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 2,944 shares during the quarter. Great Lakes Advisors LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $15,479,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. ORG Wealth Partners LLC bought a new stake in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. bought a new stake in Acuity Brands during the third quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. lifted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 63.8% during the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 172 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $50,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares in the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:AYI opened at $263.93 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $313.01 and a 200 day moving average price of $302.55. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $217.64 and a fifty-two week high of $345.30. The firm has a market cap of $8.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.43, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41.

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

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. 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 0.26%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 5.01%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

AYI has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, March 1st. Morgan Stanley raised shares of 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 note on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Company Profile

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.