Berkeley Capital Partners LLC Decreases Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Berkeley Capital Partners LLC decreased its stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 3.2% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 2,980 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 100 shares during the period. Berkeley Capital Partners LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $871,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.3% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,865,000 after buying an additional 12,479 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 5.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $172,654,000 after purchasing an additional 34,032 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 7.5% in the third quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $120,551,000 after purchasing an additional 30,581 shares during the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 9.3% in the third quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 269,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $74,092,000 after purchasing an additional 22,781 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 1.5% in the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 188,670 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $55,116,000 after purchasing an additional 2,795 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 1.0 %

Shares of Acuity Brands stock opened at $266.82 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $308.87 and its 200-day simple moving average is $302.96. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.65, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $217.64 and a twelve month high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.72 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.25%. 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 presently 5.01%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts recently commented on AYI shares. StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Wells Fargo & Company increased 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 upped their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands 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.