Bank of New York Mellon Corp Sells 4,441 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Bank of New York Mellon Corp trimmed its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 1.6% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 267,151 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 4,441 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $78,043,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in AYI. State Street Corp increased its stake in Acuity Brands by 1.3% in 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. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 5.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $172,654,000 after purchasing an additional 34,032 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its stake in Acuity Brands by 7.5% in the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $120,551,000 after buying an additional 30,581 shares in the last quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC grew its stake in Acuity Brands by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC now owns 281,308 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $77,469,000 after buying an additional 5,435 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors increased its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 9.3% in the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 269,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $74,092,000 after buying an additional 22,781 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

Acuity Brands Stock Down 4.2 %

AYI opened at $284.51 on Tuesday. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12 month low of $217.64 and a 12 month high of $345.30. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $316.45 and its 200-day moving average price is $301.44. The company has a market cap of $8.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.95, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40.

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

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.24%. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

About Acuity Brands

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.