Park Avenue Securities LLC Buys 1,509 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Park Avenue Securities LLC boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 36.4% during the first quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 5,659 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,509 shares during the quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,490,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 16.3% during the fourth quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 6,500 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,899,000 after buying an additional 909 shares during the last quarter. Entropy Technologies LP raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 47.5% in the fourth quarter. Entropy Technologies LP now owns 2,473 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $722,000 after buying an additional 796 shares during the last quarter. Swiss National Bank raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 60,500 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $17,674,000 after purchasing an additional 500 shares during the last quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 40.9% during the fourth quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 179 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $52,000 after buying an additional 52 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp increased its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 35.4% in the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 26,413 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $7,716,000 after purchasing an additional 6,901 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on AYI shares. Robert W. Baird reduced their price objective on Acuity Brands from $310.00 to $295.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, April 4th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on Acuity Brands from $290.00 to $275.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, April 4th. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $335.00 price target on Acuity Brands in a research report on Friday, April 4th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $317.60.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 0.8%

Shares of AYI stock opened at $274.11 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $216.81 and a twelve month high of $345.30. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $252.05 and its 200-day moving average price is $286.27. The stock has a market cap of $8.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.19, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.60.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.67 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $1.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. Acuity Brands’s revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $3.38 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th were issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.25%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 17th. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is presently 5.16%.

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.