Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Sold by Swedbank AB

Swedbank AB lowered its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 8.0% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 72,740 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 6,315 shares during the quarter. Swedbank AB’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $21,250,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Bank of Montreal Can grew its holdings in Acuity Brands by 18.3% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 9,650 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $2,332,000 after buying an additional 1,494 shares in the last quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the second quarter worth $430,000. Susquehanna Fundamental Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the second quarter valued at $387,000. Creative Planning lifted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 1.6% in the second quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,764 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $909,000 after purchasing an additional 61 shares during the period. Finally, Truist Financial Corp grew its position in Acuity Brands by 81.6% in the 2nd quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 8,234 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,988,000 after buying an additional 3,700 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 0.7 %

NYSE:AYI opened at $332.38 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $316.93 and a 200 day simple moving average of $289.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $10.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $217.64 and a 1-year high of $345.30. 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 (NYSE:AYI) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.72 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.72 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be issued a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.20%. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on AYI. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

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.