Parkside Financial Bank & Trust Sells 304 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Parkside Financial Bank & Trust trimmed its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 72.2% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 117 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 304 shares during the quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $34,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in AYI. State of Alaska Department of Revenue boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 7.2% in the 3rd quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue now owns 3,552 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $978,000 after buying an additional 240 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its position in Acuity Brands by 40.0% during the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 19,512 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $5,783,000 after purchasing an additional 5,575 shares in the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. lifted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.4% in the 3rd quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 109,988 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $30,290,000 after buying an additional 412 shares during the period. QRG Capital Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 12.3% during the 3rd quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 7,984 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $2,199,000 after buying an additional 876 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Radnor Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 7.2% during the third quarter. Radnor Capital Management LLC now owns 4,490 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,237,000 after buying an additional 300 shares during the period. 98.21% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 4.2 %

NYSE:AYI opened at $284.51 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.95, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 52 week low of $217.64 and a 52 week 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 firm has a 50 day moving average of $316.45 and a 200 day moving average of $301.44.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued 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 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 business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $3.72 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.24%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 5.01%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently weighed in on AYI. StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Oppenheimer lifted their price objective 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 upped their target price on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands 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.