QRG Capital Management Inc. Purchases 524 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

QRG Capital Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 6.6% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 8,508 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 524 shares during the period. QRG Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $2,485,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of AYI. Versor Investments LP bought a new position in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth about $474,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $10,412,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 8.3% in the fourth quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 6,092 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,780,000 after buying an additional 467 shares during the period. BankPlus Trust Department acquired a new stake in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth approximately $69,000. Finally, Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd bought a new position in Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter worth $554,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Acuity Brands Price Performance

AYI stock opened at $296.94 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $9.19 billion, a price-to-earnings 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 company has a 50 day simple moving average of $316.80 and a 200 day simple moving average of $300.61. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1 year low of $217.64 and a 1 year high of $345.30.

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 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 company had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.72 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a $0.17 dividend. 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. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.23%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 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.