Amundi Sells 4,203 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Amundi cut its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 25.9% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 12,035 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 4,203 shares during the period. Amundi’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $3,775,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the stock. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 6.6% during the 4th quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 1,345 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $393,000 after purchasing an additional 83 shares during the last quarter. Oak Hill Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at about $250,000. Jackson Creek Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 99.7% during the fourth quarter. Jackson Creek Investment Advisors LLC now owns 1,931 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $564,000 after buying an additional 964 shares during the period. Inceptionr LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at about $1,933,000. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at about $13,394,000. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AYI has been the topic of several analyst reports. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley raised 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 report on Tuesday, January 14th. StockNews.com lowered Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted 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. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 2.0 %

Shares of AYI opened at $263.01 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $8.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.37, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $311.42 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $303.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1 year low of $217.64 and a 1 year high of $345.30.

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

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.26%. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.