Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Purchased by Hedeker Wealth LLC

Hedeker Wealth LLC grew its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 2.0% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 19,395 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 383 shares during the period. Acuity Brands makes up approximately 1.4% of Hedeker Wealth LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 24th largest position. Hedeker Wealth LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $5,666,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. Ballentine Partners LLC raised its position in Acuity Brands by 3.9% in the fourth 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 lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.8% in the fourth quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 4,142 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,210,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Versant Capital Management Inc lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 16.3% in the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 293 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $86,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares during the period. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 0.3% during the third quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 13,498 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $3,717,000 after buying an additional 45 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Creative Planning increased its holdings in Acuity Brands by 1.2% in the third quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,811 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,050,000 after buying an additional 47 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently commented on AYI shares. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report 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, Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:AYI opened at $328.65 on Friday. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12 month low of $217.64 and a 12 month high of $345.30. The business has a 50-day moving average of $316.75 and a two-hundred day moving average of $291.18. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $10.18 billion, a PE ratio of 24.20, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 1.40.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The business had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.72 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.76 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.21%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is 4.42%.

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.