Venturi Wealth Management LLC Has $116,000 Stock Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Venturi Wealth Management LLC increased its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 13.1% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 398 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 46 shares during the quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $116,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp increased 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 worth $266,865,000 after purchasing an additional 12,479 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Acuity Brands by 5.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $172,654,000 after acquiring an additional 34,032 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its position in Acuity Brands by 7.5% in the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $120,551,000 after acquiring an additional 30,581 shares in the last quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC increased its position 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 valued at $77,469,000 after acquiring an additional 5,435 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors increased its position in 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. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

Acuity Brands Stock Down 3.8 %

Acuity Brands stock opened at $309.11 on Friday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $317.15 and its 200 day simple moving average is $297.44. 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 capitalization of $9.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.76, a PEG ratio of 2.03 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38.

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

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid 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 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.22%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 5.01%.

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.