Dimensional Fund Advisors LP Grows Stock Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 3.4% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 629,893 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 20,832 shares during the quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP owned about 2.05% of Acuity Brands worth $152,085,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AYI. Blair William & Co. IL raised its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 3.5% in the first quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 1,435 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $386,000 after purchasing an additional 48 shares during the last quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. raised its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. now owns 10,903 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $2,233,000 after purchasing an additional 55 shares during the last quarter. Aurora Investment Counsel raised its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.0% in the fourth quarter. Aurora Investment Counsel now owns 5,999 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,148,000 after purchasing an additional 61 shares during the last quarter. Covestor Ltd raised its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 14.7% in the first quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 475 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $128,000 after purchasing an additional 61 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Panagora Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.8% in the second quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,541 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $613,000 after purchasing an additional 69 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AYI has been the subject of several recent research reports. Robert W. Baird reduced their price target 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 cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 27th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut Acuity Brands from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $295.00 to $260.00 in a research report on Friday, June 28th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Acuity Brands presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $279.00.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 0.1 %

Shares of AYI opened at $272.23 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 2.77, a quick ratio of 2.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $247.25 and its two-hundred day moving average is $252.59. The firm 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, Inc. has a 12 month low of $156.84 and a 12 month high of $273.36.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 27th. The electronics maker reported $4.15 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.82 by $0.33. The firm had revenue of $968.10 million for 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 was down 3.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.50 earnings per share. Analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 14.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 1st. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 18th were paid 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%.

Acuity Brands Company 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.