Wellington Management Group LLP Has $326.45 Million Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 10.2% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 1,117,489 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 103,162 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $326,452,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Ballentine Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 3.9% during the 4th quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 911 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,000 after buying an additional 34 shares during the period. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC increased its position in Acuity Brands by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 4,142 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,210,000 after buying an additional 34 shares during the period. Versant Capital Management Inc lifted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 16.3% during the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 293 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $86,000 after buying an additional 41 shares during the last quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 13.1% during the fourth quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 398 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $116,000 after buying an additional 46 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.2% in the fourth quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 951 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $278,000 after acquiring an additional 47 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AYI has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair raised 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 upped their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price target on Acuity Brands from $336.00 to $290.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 28th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $330.60.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 0.2 %

Shares of AYI opened at $263.89 on Wednesday. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a one year low of $217.64 and a one year high of $345.30. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $299.10 and its 200-day simple moving average is $304.54. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. The company has a market capitalization of $8.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.43, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings results 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 business had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. Acuity Brands’s revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.72 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

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