Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Sold by Boston Partners

Boston Partners reduced its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 21.6% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 357,103 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 98,646 shares during the quarter. Boston Partners’ holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $104,421,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. 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 purchasing an additional 12,479 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position 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 valued at $172,654,000 after acquiring an additional 34,032 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its position 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 valued at $120,551,000 after acquiring an additional 30,581 shares during the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors increased its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 9.3% during the third quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 269,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $74,092,000 after acquiring an additional 22,781 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.5% during the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 188,670 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $55,116,000 after acquiring an additional 2,795 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of Acuity Brands stock opened at $264.33 on Wednesday. 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 stock has a market capitalization of $8.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.46, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $309.79 and its 200-day simple moving average is $303.22. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12 month low of $217.64 and a 12 month high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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 analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. Acuity Brands’s revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.72 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were given 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.26%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Morgan Stanley upgraded 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. StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, March 1st. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Oppenheimer raised 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 given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

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.