State of Michigan Retirement System Reduces Stock Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

State of Michigan Retirement System reduced its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 1.4% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 7,194 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 100 shares during the quarter. State of Michigan Retirement System’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $2,102,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in AYI. State Street Corp raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $266,865,000 after acquiring an additional 12,479 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $172,654,000 after purchasing an additional 34,032 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its position in shares of 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 period. Seizert Capital Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC now owns 281,308 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $77,469,000 after buying an additional 5,435 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 9.3% in the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 269,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $74,092,000 after buying an additional 22,781 shares during the period. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. StockNews.com lowered 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. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $282.06 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.77, a P/E/G 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. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $314.57 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $302.11. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $217.64 and a twelve month high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The company had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.72 earnings per share. Acuity Brands’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.24%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s 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.