Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. Acquires 72 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 5.2% in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,465 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 72 shares during the period. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $354,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of AYI. Victory Capital Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 16.5% during the 4th quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 6,668 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,366,000 after acquiring an additional 944 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.2% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 212,785 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $43,585,000 after acquiring an additional 4,679 shares during the last quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 4.1% during the 4th quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 7,332 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,502,000 after acquiring an additional 289 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 6.2% during the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 625,077 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $128,035,000 after acquiring an additional 36,488 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 7.0% during the 4th quarter. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. now owns 2,600 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $533,000 after acquiring an additional 169 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AYI has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on Acuity Brands from $286.00 to $280.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, June 18th. StockNews.com lowered Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 27th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lowered Acuity Brands from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $295.00 to $260.00 in a research report on Friday, June 28th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $279.00.

Acuity Brands Trading Up 1.5 %

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $258.04 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $7.94 billion, a PE ratio of 20.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a quick ratio of 2.15, a current ratio of 2.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $156.84 and a twelve month high of $272.74. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $244.49 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $252.08.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 27th. The electronics maker reported $4.15 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.82 by $0.33. The firm had revenue of $968.10 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $996.52 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 20.97% and a net margin of 10.12%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.50 EPS. Analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 14.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The business 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. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.23%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 18th. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is 4.88%.

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.