Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD Purchases 5,402 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 19.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 32,841 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 5,402 shares during the quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD owned 0.11% of Acuity Brands worth $9,595,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Acuity Brands by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,104,542 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $906,930,000 after purchasing an additional 16,407 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 10.2% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,117,489 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $326,452,000 after buying an additional 103,162 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 644,109 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $188,211,000 after buying an additional 17,299 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 11.4% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 603,446 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $176,285,000 after acquiring an additional 61,765 shares in the last quarter. Finally, FIL Ltd lifted its stake in Acuity Brands by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 436,060 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $127,386,000 after acquiring an additional 9,513 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AYI has been the subject of several recent research reports. Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $310.00 to $295.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, April 4th. StockNews.com upgraded Acuity Brands from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on Acuity Brands from $290.00 to $275.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 4th. Morgan Stanley set a $335.00 price target on Acuity Brands in a research report on Friday, April 4th. Finally, Oppenheimer lifted their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $317.60.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 4.4 %

Shares of AYI stock opened at $252.62 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $255.98 and its 200 day moving average price is $295.78. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $216.81 and a 1-year high of $345.30. The company has a market cap of $7.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.67 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $1.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The company’s revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.38 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th were issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.27%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 17th. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 5.16%.

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.