Boston Partners Reduces Stock Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Boston Partners reduced its holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 21.6% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 357,103 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 98,646 shares during the period. Boston Partners owned about 1.15% of Acuity Brands worth $104,421,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. ORG Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands during the third quarter worth $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $40,000. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 63.8% during the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 172 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $50,000 after buying an additional 67 shares in the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on AYI. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

AYI opened at $264.33 on Wednesday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $309.79 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $303.22. The company has a market cap of $8.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.46, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 52-week low of $217.64 and a 52-week 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. Equities analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.26%. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is 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.