Caitlin John LLC Raises Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Caitlin John LLC grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 3.0% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 5,616 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 161 shares during the period. Caitlin John LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,641,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in AYI. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth about $40,000. Greenleaf Trust grew its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.6% in the fourth quarter. Greenleaf Trust now owns 924 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $270,000 after acquiring an additional 49 shares during the period. Caprock Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 23.9% during the fourth quarter. Caprock Group LLC now owns 1,129 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $330,000 after purchasing an additional 218 shares during the last quarter. McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc. lifted its position in Acuity Brands by 6.3% during the fourth quarter. McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc. now owns 22,620 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $6,608,000 after purchasing an additional 1,335 shares during the period. Finally, Smith Group Asset Management LLC bought a new position in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $19,703,000. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have weighed in on AYI. Oppenheimer boosted their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

NYSE:AYI opened at $323.71 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $316.68 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $290.95. The firm has a market capitalization of $10.02 billion, a PE ratio of 23.84, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 52-week low of $217.64 and a 52-week high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The company had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.72 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.76 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.21%. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 4.42%.

About Acuity Brands

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.