Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC Cuts Stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC lessened its holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 8.2% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 18,627 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 1,660 shares during the quarter. Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $5,442,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,104,542 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $906,930,000 after acquiring an additional 16,407 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its position in Acuity Brands by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $266,865,000 after purchasing an additional 12,479 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $172,654,000 after buying an additional 34,032 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at about $110,236,000. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 241.8% during the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 216,007 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $63,102,000 after buying an additional 152,807 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AYI has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $336.00 to $290.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 28th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $340.00 to $310.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 27th. William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Three 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.com, Acuity Brands has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $330.60.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of AYI opened at $263.89 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $217.64 and a 1-year high of $345.30. The stock has a market cap of $8.17 billion, a PE ratio of 19.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $299.10 and a 200 day moving average price of $304.54.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.72 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 17th. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis 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.