Jackson Creek Investment Advisors LLC Has $564,000 Stock Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Jackson Creek Investment Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 99.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,931 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 964 shares during the quarter. Jackson Creek Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $564,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Ballentine Partners LLC boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 3.9% during the 4th quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 911 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 4,142 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,210,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 16.3% during the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 293 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $86,000 after acquiring an additional 41 shares during the last quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 13.1% during the 4th quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 398 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $116,000 after acquiring an additional 46 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc increased its holdings in Acuity Brands by 5.2% during the fourth quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 951 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $278,000 after buying an additional 47 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have commented on AYI shares. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Oppenheimer upped their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” 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 company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 0.6 %

Acuity Brands stock opened at $282.06 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $8.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.77, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. 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 company’s 50-day moving average price is $314.57 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $302.11.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The business’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.72 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a $0.17 dividend. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.24%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 5.01%.

About Acuity Brands

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.