Boston Partners Trims Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Boston Partners trimmed its holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 0.6% in the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 685,058 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 4,207 shares during the period. Boston Partners owned 2.22% of Acuity Brands worth $183,475,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in AYI. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its holdings in Acuity Brands by 38.1% during the first quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 51,890 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $13,913,000 after purchasing an additional 14,329 shares in the last quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp raised its holdings in Acuity Brands by 2.1% during the fourth quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp now owns 224,289 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $45,941,000 after purchasing an additional 4,694 shares in the last quarter. Quantedge Capital Pte Ltd purchased a new position in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth about $737,000. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp raised its holdings in Acuity Brands by 148.4% during the first quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp now owns 4,397 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,166,000 after purchasing an additional 2,627 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. raised its holdings in Acuity Brands by 25.8% during the fourth quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 47,372 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $9,703,000 after purchasing an additional 9,729 shares in the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of AYI stock traded down $9.16 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $230.22. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 164,473 shares, compared to its average volume of 248,312. The business has a fifty day moving average of $248.83 and a 200-day moving average of $251.08. The stock has a market cap of $7.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.72, a P/E/G ratio of 1.68 and a beta of 1.41. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $156.49 and a twelve month high of $272.74. The company has a current ratio of 2.77, a quick ratio of 2.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 27th. The electronics maker reported $4.15 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.82 by $0.33. The business had revenue of $968.10 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $996.52 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 10.12% and a return on equity of 20.97%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 3.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.50 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 14.26 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 1st. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 18th were given a $0.15 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 18th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.26%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is presently 4.88%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AYI has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Robert W. Baird lowered their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $286.00 to $280.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, June 18th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered shares of Acuity Brands from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $295.00 to $260.00 in a research report on Friday, June 28th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 4th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $279.00.

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.