Lummis Asset Management LP Sells 103 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Lummis Asset Management LP decreased its holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 1.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 6,673 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 103 shares during the quarter. Acuity Brands makes up 2.5% of Lummis Asset Management LP’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 13th biggest holding. Lummis Asset Management LP’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,949,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $266,865,000 after purchasing an additional 12,479 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 3.4% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 629,893 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $152,085,000 after acquiring an additional 20,832 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $172,654,000 after purchasing an additional 34,032 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Acuity Brands by 16.7% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 442,007 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $106,201,000 after purchasing an additional 63,159 shares during the period. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Acuity Brands by 7.5% in the third quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $120,551,000 after purchasing an additional 30,581 shares in the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley raised 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. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on shares of 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 assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $330.70 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.16, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The company has a market capitalization of $10.24 billion, a PE ratio of 24.35, a PEG ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 1.40. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $315.63 and its 200-day moving average price is $283.45. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $217.64 and a twelve month high of $337.99.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. The firm 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 quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.72 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.7 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total transaction of $1,561,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,438 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,573,590. This represents a 37.76 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 2.80% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.