Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Sold by Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund

Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund lessened its stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 1.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 6,230 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 78 shares during the period. Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,820,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AYI. Ballentine Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 3.9% during the 4th quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 911 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 4,142 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,210,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 16.3% during the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 293 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $86,000 after acquiring an additional 41 shares in the last quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 13,498 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $3,717,000 after acquiring an additional 45 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Venturi Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 13.1% during the 4th quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 398 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $116,000 after acquiring an additional 46 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Morgan Stanley raised Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Oppenheimer upped their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com lowered Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 0.7 %

AYI stock opened at $296.94 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $9.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.87, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. 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 business has a fifty day simple moving average of $316.80 and a 200-day simple moving average of $300.14. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 52 week low of $217.64 and a 52 week high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $951.60 million during 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 revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $3.72 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a $0.17 dividend. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.23%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.