Inspire Advisors LLC Has $1.19 Million Stock Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Inspire Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 2.6% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 4,062 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 104 shares during the quarter. Inspire Advisors LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,187,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of AYI. Covestor Ltd grew its holdings in Acuity Brands by 12.7% during the 3rd quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 427 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $118,000 after acquiring an additional 48 shares during the period. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 9.8% in the 3rd quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. now owns 18,275 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $5,033,000 after buying an additional 1,636 shares during the period. Venturi Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 16.6% in the 3rd quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 352 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $97,000 after buying an additional 50 shares during the period. Apollon Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.9% in the 3rd quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,425 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $943,000 after buying an additional 97 shares during the period. Finally, Entropy Technologies LP acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at $462,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $268.28 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $8.31 billion, a PE ratio of 19.76, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $217.64 and a 1-year high of $345.30. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $314.05 and a 200 day moving average price of $302.70.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.72 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.25%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is 5.01%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Oppenheimer boosted 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. StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company boosted 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. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price target 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. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

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.