Fiduciary Group LLC Reduces Stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Fiduciary Group LLC lowered its stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 1.0% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 5,585 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 55 shares during the period. Fiduciary Group LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,632,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the third quarter worth about $3,849,000. Hancock Whitney Corp grew its position in Acuity Brands by 42.0% in the third quarter. Hancock Whitney Corp now owns 6,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,784,000 after acquiring an additional 1,917 shares in the last quarter. Landscape Capital Management L.L.C. purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the third quarter worth about $813,000. Merit Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth about $232,000. Finally, Integrated Investment Consultants LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the third quarter worth about $538,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts recently commented on the company. StockNews.com lowered Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 1st. Oppenheimer boosted their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price 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. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price 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. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Acuity Brands stock opened at $266.82 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $308.87 and a 200-day moving average price of $302.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $217.64 and a fifty-two week high of $345.30. The company has a market capitalization of $8.26 billion, a PE ratio of 19.65, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.72 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a $0.17 dividend. This is an increase 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 yield of 0.25%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is 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.