Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Sold by New York State Teachers Retirement System

New York State Teachers Retirement System decreased its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 0.8% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 37,836 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 300 shares during the quarter. New York State Teachers Retirement System’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $11,053,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter worth approximately $33,000. V Square Quantitative Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter valued at $35,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at about $40,000. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. grew its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 63.8% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 172 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $50,000 after buying an additional 67 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on AYI. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Oppenheimer increased their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Three equities 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 has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Trading Up 1.3 %

NYSE:AYI opened at $329.51 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $10.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $217.64 and a twelve month high of $345.30. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $316.93 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $295.13. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.72 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.21%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

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.