Los Angeles Capital Management LLC Boosts Stock Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Los Angeles Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 8.3% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 6,092 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 467 shares during the quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,780,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $266,865,000 after purchasing an additional 12,479 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Acuity Brands by 5.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $172,654,000 after buying an additional 34,032 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its position in Acuity Brands by 7.5% during the third quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $120,551,000 after buying an additional 30,581 shares in the last quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC increased its stake in Acuity Brands by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC now owns 281,308 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $77,469,000 after acquiring an additional 5,435 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors raised its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 9.3% in the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 269,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $74,092,000 after acquiring an additional 22,781 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

AYI stock opened at $296.94 on Friday. 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 market cap of $9.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.87, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $316.80 and its 200 day moving average is $300.14. 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 data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million for 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 quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.72 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed 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 0.23%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is 5.01%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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