AlphaQuest LLC Decreases Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

AlphaQuest LLC decreased its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 38.7% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 5,805 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 3,668 shares during the period. AlphaQuest LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,696,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $266,865,000 after buying an additional 12,479 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 5.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $172,654,000 after buying an additional 34,032 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 7.5% in the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $120,551,000 after buying an additional 30,581 shares during the period. Seizert Capital Partners LLC grew its stake in Acuity Brands by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC now owns 281,308 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $77,469,000 after buying an additional 5,435 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors raised its holdings in Acuity Brands by 9.3% during the 3rd 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 period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Acuity Brands Price Performance

AYI stock opened at $282.06 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $314.57 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $302.11. 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 cap of $8.73 billion, a PE ratio of 20.77, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a one year low of $217.64 and a one year high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released 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 for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The firm’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.72 earnings per share. On average, analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.24%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 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.