Venturi Wealth Management LLC Buys 46 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Venturi Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 13.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 398 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 46 shares during the quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $116,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $40,000. UMB Bank n.a. raised its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 63.8% in the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 172 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $50,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares during the last quarter. Finally, V Square Quantitative Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 40.9% in the fourth quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 179 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $52,000 after purchasing an additional 52 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

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

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of AYI opened at $309.11 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $9.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.76, a PEG ratio of 2.03 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $217.64 and a 1-year high of $345.30. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $317.15 and its 200 day simple moving average is $297.44. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.72 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders 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 dividend yield of 0.22%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is currently 5.01%.

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.