Norges Bank Invests $110.24 Million in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Norges Bank acquired a new position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund acquired 377,354 shares of the electronics maker’s stock, valued at approximately $110,236,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter worth $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at about $40,000. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. grew its stake in Acuity Brands by 63.8% during the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 172 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $50,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently commented on AYI. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Acuity Brands from $336.00 to $290.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 28th. Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Robert W. Baird cut their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $340.00 to $310.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, March 27th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Finally, William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $330.60.

Acuity Brands Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of Acuity Brands stock opened at $263.89 on Wednesday. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $217.64 and a fifty-two week high of $345.30. 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 company has a market cap of $8.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $299.10 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $304.54.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The company 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%. Acuity Brands’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.72 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.26%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 5.01%.

Acuity Brands Company 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.