Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC Boosts Stock Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC lifted its stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 7.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 4,989 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 357 shares during the period. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,190,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of AYI. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in Acuity Brands by 4.1% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,149,459 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $235,444,000 after purchasing an additional 45,666 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. increased its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.5% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 835,521 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $201,728,000 after buying an additional 20,537 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in Acuity Brands by 3.4% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 629,893 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $152,085,000 after buying an additional 20,832 shares during the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 366.2% during the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 345,628 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $83,430,000 after buying an additional 271,485 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new stake in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth $68,686,000. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on AYI shares. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 27th. Robert W. Baird dropped their price objective on Acuity Brands from $286.00 to $280.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, June 18th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut Acuity Brands from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $295.00 to $260.00 in a research note on Friday, June 28th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $279.00.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

AYI stock opened at $272.23 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a current ratio of 2.77 and a quick ratio of 2.15. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1 year low of $156.84 and a 1 year high of $273.36. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $247.25 and a 200 day moving average of $252.54. The company has a market cap of $8.38 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.13, a PEG ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 1.41.

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

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.22%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 18th. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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.