Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. Has $467,000 Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. lessened its stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI - Free Report) by 41.8% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 1,600 shares of the electronics maker's stock after selling 1,150 shares during the quarter. Hillsdale Investment Management Inc.'s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $467,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares 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 valued at $266,865,000 after acquiring an additional 12,479 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased 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 worth $172,654,000 after purchasing an additional 34,032 shares in the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors lifted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 9.3% during the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 269,043 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $74,092,000 after purchasing an additional 22,781 shares during the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 1.5% in the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 188,670 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $55,116,000 after buying an additional 2,795 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Allianz Asset Management GmbH grew its stake in Acuity Brands by 2.4% during the fourth quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 152,187 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $44,458,000 after buying an additional 3,589 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company's stock.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

AYI has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from an "equal weight" rating to an "overweight" rating and lifted their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a "strong-buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Saturday, March 1st. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $336.00 to $290.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a report on Friday. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Oppenheimer increased their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $330.60.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 2.0 %

AYI stock traded down $5.39 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $262.44. 447,445 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 277,480. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a one year low of $217.64 and a one year high of $345.30. The stock's fifty day moving average price is $301.88 and its 200-day moving average price is $303.67. The company has a market cap of $8.12 billion, a PE ratio of 19.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. 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 issued 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 during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. Acuity Brands's quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.72 EPS. Research analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.26%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. Acuity Brands's dividend payout ratio is 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.