Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Bought by Teacher Retirement System of Texas

Teacher Retirement System of Texas grew its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 23.2% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 36,123 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 6,795 shares during the quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas’ holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $10,553,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at $3,849,000. Hancock Whitney Corp increased its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 42.0% in the third quarter. Hancock Whitney Corp now owns 6,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,784,000 after buying an additional 1,917 shares in the last quarter. Landscape Capital Management L.L.C. purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at $813,000. Merit Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at $232,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC increased its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 213.4% in the third quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 5,040 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,388,000 after buying an additional 3,432 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AYI has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective 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. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 1st. Finally, Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 1.2 %

Shares of NYSE:AYI opened at $264.17 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $307.14 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $303.18. 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. The firm has a market cap of $8.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.45, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.72 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.26%. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 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.