M&T Bank Corp Trims Stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

M&T Bank Corp reduced its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 7.7% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 15,924 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 1,333 shares during the quarter. M&T Bank Corp owned 0.05% of Acuity Brands worth $4,652,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp raised its position in Acuity Brands by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,865,000 after purchasing an additional 12,479 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Acuity Brands by 5.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $172,654,000 after purchasing an additional 34,032 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its position in Acuity Brands by 7.5% in the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $120,551,000 after purchasing an additional 30,581 shares during the period. Seizert Capital Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.0% during the third quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC now owns 281,308 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $77,469,000 after acquiring an additional 5,435 shares during the period. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors increased its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 9.3% during the third quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 269,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $74,092,000 after acquiring an additional 22,781 shares during the period. 98.21% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

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

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of AYI stock opened at $282.06 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $8.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.77, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The company’s 50 day moving average is $314.57 and its 200 day moving average is $301.67. 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, Inc. has a 52-week low of $217.64 and a 52-week high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) 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 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 last year, the company posted $3.72 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.24%. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.