Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC Has $92,000 Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC increased its holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 1,470.0% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 314 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 294 shares during the quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $92,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Bailard Inc. grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.5% during the 4th quarter. Bailard Inc. now owns 1,896 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $554,000 after acquiring an additional 47 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at $29,000. Fisher Asset Management LLC raised its position in Acuity Brands by 1.5% in the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 188,670 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $55,116,000 after purchasing an additional 2,795 shares during the period. SVB Wealth LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth $707,000. Finally, Illumine Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth $784,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

AYI opened at $267.05 on Tuesday. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $217.64 and a fifty-two week high of $345.30. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.66, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a fifty day moving average of $310.60 and a 200 day moving average of $303.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million during 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%. The business’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.72 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.25%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 5.01%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AYI has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Oppenheimer upped their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target 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. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 1st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

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.