Wedge Capital Management L L P NC Sells 11,117 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Wedge Capital Management L L P NC cut its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 22.6% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 37,985 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 11,117 shares during the period. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $11,097,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the business. State Street Corp grew its position in Acuity Brands by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,865,000 after acquiring an additional 12,479 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in Acuity Brands by 3.4% during 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 during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Acuity Brands by 5.7% during the 3rd 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. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its position in Acuity Brands by 16.7% during the 2nd 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. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its position in Acuity Brands by 7.5% during the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $120,551,000 after acquiring an additional 30,581 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AYI has been the topic of several research reports. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 10th. Finally, William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

AYI stock opened at $330.70 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $315.63 and its 200-day moving average is $283.73. 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 cap of $10.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $217.64 and a twelve month high of $337.99.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $951.60 million for 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 firm’s revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.72 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.7 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Acuity Brands news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 28th. The stock was 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 owns 8,438 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,573,590. This represents a 37.76 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 2.80% of the stock is currently owned by company 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.