Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Stake Cut by Boston Trust Walden Corp

Boston Trust Walden Corp lessened its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 6.6% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 205,907 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 14,590 shares during the quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $60,152,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in AYI. Mackenzie Financial Corp acquired a new position in Acuity Brands in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $430,000. Creative Planning grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.6% during the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,764 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $909,000 after acquiring an additional 61 shares in the last quarter. Truist Financial Corp increased its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 81.6% in the second quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 8,234 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,988,000 after acquiring an additional 3,700 shares during the last quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the second quarter worth $3,332,000. Finally, Park Avenue Securities LLC boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 3.2% during the third quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC now owns 3,624 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $998,000 after purchasing an additional 111 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have weighed in on the company. 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. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Oppenheimer raised their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

NYSE AYI opened at $332.38 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $10.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.48, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 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 current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $317.06 and a 200 day simple moving average of $290.09.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 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 business had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.72 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.76 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be given a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.20%. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 4.42%.

About Acuity Brands

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.