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

California Public Employees Retirement System lessened its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 7.4% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & 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 owned about 0.22% of Acuity Brands worth $19,475,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. ORG Wealth Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at about $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter valued at about $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth about $40,000. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. increased its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 63.8% in the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 172 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $50,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have issued reports on AYI. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Oppenheimer increased their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. StockNews.com lowered Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut their target price on Acuity Brands from $290.00 to $275.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $324.60.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 9.4 %

NYSE AYI opened at $233.15 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $294.09 and a 200-day 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. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $217.64 and a 1-year high of $345.30. The firm has a market cap of $7.22 billion, a PE ratio of 17.17, a price-to-earnings-growth 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 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.67 by $0.06. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The firm had revenue of $1.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.38 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.29%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.