Corient Private Wealth LLC Cuts Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Corient Private Wealth LLC trimmed its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 0.6% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 12,080 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 73 shares during the quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $3,528,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of AYI. World Investment Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter worth about $31,026,000. Smith Group Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth about $19,703,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 741.8% in the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 71,744 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $20,959,000 after purchasing an additional 63,221 shares during the period. Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB publ raised its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 345.0% in the 4th quarter. Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB publ now owns 72,761 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $21,404,000 after purchasing an additional 56,409 shares during the period. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth about $13,394,000. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AYI has been the topic of several analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Oppenheimer raised their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $264.17 on Friday. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $217.64 and a fifty-two week high of $345.30. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $307.14 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $303.18. 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 firm has a market cap of $8.18 billion, a PE ratio of 19.45, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.72 EPS. Acuity Brands’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were 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 was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.26%. 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.