American Century Companies Inc. Lowers Stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

American Century Companies Inc. lowered its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 0.8% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 808,266 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 6,856 shares during the quarter. American Century Companies Inc.’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $236,119,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in AYI. World Investment Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter valued at $31,026,000. Smith Group Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at $19,703,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 741.8% during the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 71,744 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $20,959,000 after buying an additional 63,221 shares in the last quarter. Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB publ raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 345.0% during the 4th quarter. Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB publ now owns 72,761 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $21,404,000 after buying an additional 56,409 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at $13,394,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AYI has been the topic of several recent research reports. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Oppenheimer increased their target price 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 target price 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. StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Finally, William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of Acuity Brands stock opened at $264.17 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $8.18 billion, a PE ratio of 19.45, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12-month low of $217.64 and a 12-month high of $345.30. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $307.14 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $303.18.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 company’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.72 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS 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 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 payout ratio is presently 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.