Lightrock Netherlands B.V. Purchases Shares of 10,054 Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Lightrock Netherlands B.V. acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm acquired 10,054 shares of the electronics maker’s stock, valued at approximately $2,952,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in AYI. ORG Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $29,000. UMB Bank n.a. raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 517.6% in the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 105 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 88 shares during the period. Westside Investment Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter worth about $33,000. V Square Quantitative Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter valued at about $35,000. Finally, Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at about $40,000. 98.21% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have issued reports on AYI. Oppenheimer increased their price target on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 1.3 %

NYSE AYI opened at $319.52 on Tuesday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $316.98 and a 200 day moving average price of $292.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. The company has a market cap of $9.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.53, a P/E/G ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a one year low of $217.64 and a one year high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $951.60 million during 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 company’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.72 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be issued a $0.17 dividend. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.21%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

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.