Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd Makes New $554,000 Investment in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm bought 1,896 shares of the electronics maker’s stock, valued at approximately $554,000.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas bought a new position in Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $3,849,000. Hancock Whitney Corp raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 42.0% during the 3rd quarter. Hancock Whitney Corp now owns 6,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,784,000 after purchasing an additional 1,917 shares during the period. Aigen Investment Management LP acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $484,000. Landscape Capital Management L.L.C. acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $813,000. Finally, Entropy Technologies LP acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $462,000. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Oppenheimer increased their price target on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. 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 research report on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 0.7 %

Shares of AYI stock opened at $296.94 on Friday. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1 year low of $217.64 and a 1 year high of $345.30. The stock has a market cap of $9.19 billion, a PE ratio of 21.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. The business’s fifty day moving average is $316.80 and its 200-day moving average is $300.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The company’s revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.72 EPS. Equities analysts expect 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. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend 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.