Greenleaf Trust Purchases 49 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Greenleaf Trust lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 5.6% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 924 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 49 shares during the period. Greenleaf Trust’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $270,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the business. State Street Corp increased its position in Acuity Brands by 1.3% during the third 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 period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $172,654,000 after purchasing an additional 34,032 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 7.5% during the third quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $120,551,000 after purchasing an additional 30,581 shares during the period. Seizert Capital Partners LLC raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.0% in the third quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC now owns 281,308 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $77,469,000 after buying an additional 5,435 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 9.3% in the third quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 269,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $74,092,000 after buying an additional 22,781 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Acuity Brands stock opened at $323.71 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The stock has a market cap of $10.02 billion, a PE ratio of 23.84, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12-month low of $217.64 and a 12-month high of $345.30. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $316.68 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $290.95.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The firm’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.72 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 3rd. This is an increase 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 dividend payout ratio is 4.42%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have weighed in on AYI. StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 10th. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” 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 price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target 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. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

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.