Parkside Financial Bank & Trust Reduces Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Parkside Financial Bank & Trust trimmed its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 72.2% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 117 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 304 shares during the quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $34,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of AYI. QRG Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in Acuity Brands by 6.6% in the 4th quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 8,508 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $2,485,000 after buying an additional 524 shares during the period. Versor Investments LP acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth $474,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $10,412,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Acuity Brands by 8.3% during the fourth quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 6,092 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,780,000 after purchasing an additional 467 shares during the period. Finally, BankPlus Trust Department purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at $69,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. 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 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, StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 4.2 %

Shares of AYI stock opened at $284.51 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $316.45 and a 200-day simple moving average of $301.44. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $217.64 and a 1-year high of $345.30. The company has a market cap of $8.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.95, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted 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 business had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The company’s revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.72 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid 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 yield of 0.24%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is 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.