Magnetar Financial LLC Buys New Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Magnetar Financial LLC bought a new stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor bought 1,732 shares of the electronics maker’s stock, valued at approximately $506,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas acquired a new position in Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at about $3,849,000. Hancock Whitney Corp raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 42.0% in the 3rd quarter. Hancock Whitney Corp now owns 6,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,784,000 after purchasing an additional 1,917 shares during the last quarter. Landscape Capital Management L.L.C. acquired a new position in Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at about $813,000. Merit Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at about $232,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC grew its holdings in Acuity Brands by 213.4% in the 3rd quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 5,040 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,388,000 after buying an additional 3,432 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AYI has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target 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. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of AYI opened at $264.17 on Friday. The business’s 50 day moving average is $307.14 and its two-hundred day moving average is $303.18. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 52-week low of $217.64 and a 52-week high of $345.30. The firm has a market cap of $8.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.45, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates 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 was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.72 EPS. Analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a $0.17 dividend. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.26%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

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.