Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Sold by Arcus Capital Partners LLC

Arcus Capital Partners LLC lowered its holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI - Free Report) by 30.0% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 2,644 shares of the electronics maker's stock after selling 1,132 shares during the quarter. Arcus Capital Partners LLC's holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $711,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,125,000. Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 35.4% during the 4th quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 26,413 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $7,716,000 after acquiring an additional 6,901 shares during the period. Lightrock Netherlands B.V. purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter worth approximately $2,952,000. Entropy Technologies LP grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 47.5% in the 4th quarter. Entropy Technologies LP now owns 2,473 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $722,000 after acquiring an additional 796 shares during the period. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. increased its stake in Acuity Brands by 16.3% in the 4th quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 6,500 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $1,899,000 after purchasing an additional 909 shares in the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have commented on AYI. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley raised Acuity Brands from an "equal weight" rating to an "overweight" rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a "strong-buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

AYI stock traded up $0.87 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $329.96. The stock had a trading volume of 147,186 shares, compared to its average volume of 314,777. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $217.64 and a 1-year high of $345.30. The stock has a market cap of $10.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.40. The company's 50 day moving average price is $317.10 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $295.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $951.60 million for 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 company's quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.72 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This is a boost from Acuity Brands's previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.21%. Acuity Brands's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 5.01%.

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.