Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas Makes New Investment in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas acquired a new position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund acquired 13,977 shares of the electronics maker’s stock, valued at approximately $3,849,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Acuity Brands by 1.3% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,865,000 after purchasing an additional 12,479 shares in the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its stake in Acuity Brands by 2.5% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 835,521 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $201,728,000 after purchasing an additional 20,537 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 3.4% during the second 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 during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $172,654,000 after acquiring an additional 34,032 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 63,159 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Acuity Brands

In other news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total value of $1,561,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,438 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,573,590. This trade represents a 37.76 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 1.50% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on AYI. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Acuity Brands from $289.00 to $305.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. StockNews.com upgraded Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Oppenheimer boosted their target price on Acuity Brands from $315.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $324.00.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of Acuity Brands stock opened at $324.01 on Friday. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1 year low of $196.38 and a 1 year high of $337.99. The business has a 50-day moving average of $314.62 and a two-hundred day moving average of $272.72. The company has a market capitalization of $10.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.02, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.39. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 2.72 and a quick ratio of 2.16.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 1st. The electronics maker reported $4.30 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.90 by $0.40. The company had revenue of $1.03 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.02 billion. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 20.49% and a net margin of 11.00%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $3.74 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.51 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 18th were given a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 18th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.19%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 4.46%.

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.