California Public Employees Retirement System Sells 5,353 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

California Public Employees Retirement System cut its stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 7.4% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 66,666 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 5,353 shares during the quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $19,475,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of AYI. ORG Wealth Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in Acuity Brands during the third quarter valued at $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at $40,000. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 63.8% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 172 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $50,000 after buying an additional 67 shares during the period. 98.21% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AYI has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on Acuity Brands from $310.00 to $295.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on Acuity Brands from $290.00 to $275.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Finally, William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $324.60.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 9.4 %

Acuity Brands stock opened at $233.15 on Friday. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12 month low of $217.64 and a 12 month high of $345.30. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $294.09 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $303.75. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The firm has a market cap of $7.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.17, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.67 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $1.01 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.03 billion. 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 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.38 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Investors of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 17th. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.29%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 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.