Van ECK Associates Corp Grows Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI - Free Report) by 35.4% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 26,413 shares of the electronics maker's stock after acquiring an additional 6,901 shares during the quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp owned about 0.09% of Acuity Brands worth $7,716,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have weighed in on AYI. Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley raised Acuity Brands from an "equal weight" rating to an "overweight" rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of AYI stock traded down $12.09 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $309.11. The stock had a trading volume of 261,838 shares, compared to its average volume of 305,231. The company has a market cap of $9.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12-month low of $217.64 and a 12-month high of $345.30. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $317.32 and a 200 day simple moving average of $296.85.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.72 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current 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 given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This is an increase from Acuity Brands's previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.22%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands's payout ratio is currently 5.01%.

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.