Proficio Capital Partners LLC Purchases Shares of 35,640 Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Proficio Capital Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI - Free Report) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 35,640 shares of the electronics maker's stock, valued at approximately $10,412,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC owned about 0.12% of Acuity Brands at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Acuity Brands by 1.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $266,865,000 after buying an additional 12,479 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $172,654,000 after acquiring an additional 34,032 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 7.5% in the third quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $120,551,000 after purchasing an additional 30,581 shares during the period. Seizert Capital Partners LLC increased its position in Acuity Brands by 2.0% during the third quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC now owns 281,308 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $77,469,000 after purchasing an additional 5,435 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 9.3% during the third quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 269,043 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $74,092,000 after purchasing an additional 22,781 shares during the period. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 4.2 %

NYSE:AYI traded down $12.62 on Monday, reaching $284.51. 435,350 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 311,509. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 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. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The business has a fifty day moving average of $316.80 and a 200-day moving average of $301.10.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $951.60 million for 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 firm's quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.72 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.24%. This is a boost from Acuity Brands's previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands's payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

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

Acuity Brands 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.