Trexquant Investment LP Acquires 28,343 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Trexquant Investment LP lifted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 217.9% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 41,353 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 28,343 shares during the quarter. Trexquant Investment LP’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $12,080,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Acuity Brands by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,104,542 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $906,930,000 after purchasing an additional 16,407 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 10.2% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,117,489 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $326,452,000 after buying an additional 103,162 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its stake 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 buying an additional 12,479 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Acuity Brands by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 644,109 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $188,211,000 after acquiring an additional 17,299 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new position in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $110,236,000. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

AYI opened at $266.79 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.65, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $297.70 and its 200-day simple moving average is $304.27. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a one year low of $217.64 and a one year high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released 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. The company had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $3.72 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Shareholders 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 yield of 0.25%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AYI has been the topic of several analyst reports. Oppenheimer upped their target price 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. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Robert W. Baird cut their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $340.00 to $310.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 27th. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on Acuity Brands from $336.00 to $290.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 28th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $330.60.

Acuity Brands 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.