First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. Grows Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 17.0% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 883 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 128 shares during the period. First Citizens Bank & Trust Co.’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $258,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Ballentine Partners LLC boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 3.9% during the 4th quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 911 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.8% during the fourth quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 4,142 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,210,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 16.3% during the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 293 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $86,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares in the last quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.3% in the third quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 13,498 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $3,717,000 after buying an additional 45 shares during the period. Finally, Creative Planning grew its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.2% in the third quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,811 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,050,000 after buying an additional 47 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on AYI. Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price 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. Oppenheimer lifted their price target 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 raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

AYI opened at $327.09 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $10.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.09, a PEG ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a 50-day moving average of $316.20 and a 200-day moving average of $287.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $217.64 and a 1-year 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 firm 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%. Acuity Brands’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.72 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.7 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 represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.21%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 3rd. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is currently 4.42%.

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.