KBC Group NV grew its stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI – Free Report) by 109.6% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 20,901 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 10,928 shares during the quarter. KBC Group NV’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $6,106,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of AYI. UMB Bank n.a. raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 517.6% in the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 105 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 88 shares in the last quarter. ORG Wealth Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth approximately $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $33,000. V Square Quantitative Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the third quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Finally, Prospera Private Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands in the third quarter worth $62,000. 98.21% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth
AYI has been the topic of a number of research reports. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price 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. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $341.40.
Acuity Brands Trading Up 1.9 %
NYSE:AYI opened at $334.63 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $10.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.64, a PEG ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.40. 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 company’s 50 day moving average price is $316.65 and its 200-day moving average price is $288.84. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 52 week low of $217.64 and a 52 week high of $345.30.
Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI – Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The business had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.72 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Acuity Brands Increases Dividend
The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be given a $0.17 dividend. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.20%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is 4.42%.
About Acuity Brands
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.
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