Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership Raises Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 241.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 216,007 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 152,807 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership owned 0.70% of Acuity Brands worth $63,102,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have commented on AYI. Oppenheimer increased their price target 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 shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $336.00 to $290.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 28th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 1st. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $330.60.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $263.89 on Wednesday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $299.10 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $304.54. The stock has a market cap of $8.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.43, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12 month low of $217.64 and a 12 month high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $951.60 million during 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 firm’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.72 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Investors of record on Friday, April 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.26%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 17th. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 5.01%.

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.