Autumn Glory Partners LLC Purchases Shares of 1,000 Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Autumn Glory Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor purchased 1,000 shares of the electronics maker’s stock, valued at approximately $292,000.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter valued at $3,849,000. Hancock Whitney Corp raised its holdings in Acuity Brands by 42.0% in the 3rd quarter. Hancock Whitney Corp now owns 6,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,784,000 after purchasing an additional 1,917 shares in the last quarter. Aigen Investment Management LP bought a new position in Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter worth $484,000. Landscape Capital Management L.L.C. bought a new position in Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter worth $813,000. Finally, Entropy Technologies LP bought a new position in Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter worth $462,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

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

Acuity Brands Stock Up 1.3 %

Shares of Acuity Brands stock opened at $329.51 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. The company has a 50-day moving average of $316.84 and a 200 day moving average of $293.95. The firm has a market cap of $10.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.26, a PEG ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.40. 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 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 company had revenue of $951.60 million during 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%. Acuity Brands’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $3.72 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.21%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 5.01%.

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.