Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Bought by UMB Bank n.a.

UMB Bank n.a. grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 517.6% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 105 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 88 shares during the quarter. UMB Bank n.a.’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $29,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in AYI. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 23.4% during the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 99,573 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $20,396,000 after purchasing an additional 18,881 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 4.1% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,149,459 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $235,444,000 after buying an additional 45,666 shares during the last quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 14.4% during the 4th quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 13,438 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $2,755,000 after purchasing an additional 1,694 shares during the period. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda boosted its stake in Acuity Brands by 88.4% during the 4th quarter. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda now owns 1,396 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $286,000 after purchasing an additional 655 shares during the period. Finally, Los Angeles Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the first quarter worth approximately $7,061,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have commented on the stock. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $315.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 27th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Acuity Brands from $289.00 to $305.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $324.00.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of Acuity Brands stock opened at $304.57 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 2.72 and a quick ratio of 2.16. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $262.44 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $256.10. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $156.84 and a fifty-two week high of $312.20. The company has a market cap of $9.37 billion, a PE ratio of 24.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.97 and a beta of 1.41.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 1st. The electronics maker reported $4.30 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.90 by $0.40. The firm had revenue of $1.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.02 billion. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 20.49% and a net margin of 11.00%. Acuity Brands’s quarterly revenue was up 2.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $3.74 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.48 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 18th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.20%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is presently 4.88%.

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.