Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Sold by Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund trimmed its holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 11.5% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 14,907 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 1,928 shares during the period. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $4,355,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Creative Planning lifted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,811 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,050,000 after acquiring an additional 47 shares during the period. Ballentine Partners LLC acquired a new position in Acuity Brands during the third quarter worth approximately $242,000. State of Alaska Department of Revenue raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 7.2% during the third quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue now owns 3,552 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $978,000 after purchasing an additional 240 shares during the period. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 13,498 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $3,717,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. Finally, GW Henssler & Associates Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter valued at $211,000. 98.21% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently weighed in on AYI. Wells Fargo & Company increased 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. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on 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 Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to 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 $309.32 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. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $217.64 and a 1-year high of $345.30. The company has a market capitalization of $9.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.78, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. The business has a 50-day moving average of $316.99 and a 200-day moving average of $299.65.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.72 EPS. Acuity Brands’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.22%. 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. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.