Ballentine Partners LLC Has $266,000 Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Ballentine Partners LLC grew its holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 3.9% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 911 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $266,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. UMB Bank n.a. grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 517.6% in the 3rd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 105 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 88 shares during the period. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at approximately $33,000. V Square Quantitative Management LLC bought a new stake in Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at $35,000. Finally, Prospera Private Wealth LLC bought a new stake in Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at $62,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total value of $1,561,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,438 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,573,590. This trade represents a 37.76 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 2.80% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AYI has been the topic of several recent research reports. Robert W. Baird lifted their price target on Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 0.6 %

NYSE:AYI opened at $335.02 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $10.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $217.64 and a twelve month high of $345.30. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $315.91 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $286.03.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly 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 firm 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 company’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $3.72 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd will be paid a $0.17 dividend. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.20%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 4.42%.

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.