Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd Purchases New Stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 1,896 shares of the electronics maker’s stock, valued at approximately $554,000.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 1.3% during the third 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 boosted its position 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 worth $172,654,000 after purchasing an additional 34,032 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted 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 purchasing an additional 30,581 shares in the last quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 2.0% during the third quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC now owns 281,308 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $77,469,000 after purchasing an additional 5,435 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 9.3% during the third quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 269,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $74,092,000 after purchasing an additional 22,781 shares in the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on 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 upped their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:AYI opened at $296.94 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.19 billion, a PE ratio of 21.87, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 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. The business has a 50-day moving average of $316.80 and a two-hundred day moving average of $300.61. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12 month low of $217.64 and a 12 month high of $345.30.

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

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.23%. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.