Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Stake Trimmed by Hillsdale Investment Management Inc.

Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. cut its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 41.8% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,600 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 1,150 shares during the quarter. Hillsdale Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $467,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Caprock Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $251,000. Commerce Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at $231,000. Cerity Partners LLC boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 13.1% in the third quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 2,504 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $690,000 after buying an additional 290 shares during the period. Alpha DNA Investment Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 13.8% during the third quarter. Alpha DNA Investment Management LLC now owns 1,584 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $436,000 after buying an additional 192 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC raised its position in Acuity Brands by 7.4% during the third quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 185,875 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $51,188,000 after buying an additional 12,868 shares during the period. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 4.2 %

Acuity Brands stock opened at $275.18 on Tuesday. 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 firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $306.52 and its 200-day simple moving average is $303.82. The company has a market capitalization of $8.52 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.26, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share 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%. The business’s 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. Sell-side analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have commented on AYI shares. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 1st. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $341.40.

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.