Arizona State Retirement System Grows Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Arizona State Retirement System grew its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 0.8% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 8,929 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 70 shares during the period. Arizona State Retirement System’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $2,608,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. ORG Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the third quarter worth $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $40,000. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. boosted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 63.8% during the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 172 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $50,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on the company. StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 4.9 %

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $268.28 on Tuesday. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1 year low of $217.64 and a 1 year high of $345.30. The firm has a market cap of $8.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.76, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $314.05 and its 200-day simple moving average is $302.70.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The business had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.72 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.25%. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is presently 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.