State of Michigan Retirement System Sells 100 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

State of Michigan Retirement System trimmed its holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 1.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 7,194 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 100 shares during the quarter. State of Michigan Retirement System’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $2,102,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in AYI. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC lifted its stake in Acuity Brands by 1,470.0% in the fourth quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 314 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $92,000 after purchasing an additional 294 shares during the last quarter. Bailard Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.5% in the fourth quarter. Bailard Inc. now owns 1,896 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $554,000 after buying an additional 47 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at about $29,000. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 1.5% during the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 188,670 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $55,116,000 after acquiring an additional 2,795 shares during the period. Finally, SVB Wealth LLC bought a new position in Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter worth approximately $707,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Acuity Brands Stock Up 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE:AYI opened at $282.06 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.77, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $314.57 and a 200-day moving average price of $302.11. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 52-week low of $217.64 and a 52-week high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings data 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 business had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.72 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.24%. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

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.