Swiss National Bank Purchases 500 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Swiss National Bank lifted its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 0.8% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 60,500 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 500 shares during the quarter. Swiss National Bank’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $17,674,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at about $3,849,000. Hancock Whitney Corp grew its stake in Acuity Brands by 42.0% in the third 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. purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at about $813,000. Merit Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at about $232,000. Finally, Integrated Investment Consultants LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at about $538,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $264.33 on Wednesday. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $309.79 and its 200 day moving average price is $303.22. The firm has a market cap of $8.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.46, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 52 week low of $217.64 and a 52 week high of $345.30. 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 issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. The firm 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 revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.72 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.26%. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.