Capital Fund Management S.A. Acquires New Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Capital Fund Management S.A. acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 20,865 shares of the electronics maker's stock, valued at approximately $6,095,000. Capital Fund Management S.A. owned about 0.07% of Acuity Brands at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Acuity Brands by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,104,542 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $906,930,000 after purchasing an additional 16,407 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its holdings in Acuity Brands by 10.2% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,117,489 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $326,452,000 after buying an additional 103,162 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Acuity Brands by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 644,109 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $188,211,000 after acquiring an additional 17,299 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. lifted its stake in Acuity Brands by 11.4% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 603,446 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $176,285,000 after acquiring an additional 61,765 shares during the last quarter. Finally, FIL Ltd grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 436,060 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $127,386,000 after acquiring an additional 9,513 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently issued reports on AYI. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Oppenheimer lifted their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley set a $335.00 target price on Acuity Brands in a report on Friday, April 4th. StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Friday, April 4th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $290.00 to $275.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 4th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $317.60.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Acuity Brands stock traded up $0.47 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $229.01. The company's stock had a trading volume of 382,529 shares, compared to its average volume of 296,583. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. The company has a market cap of $7.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.86, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.43. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $216.81 and a 1-year high of $345.30. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $273.97 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $300.76.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.67 by $0.06. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The company had revenue of $1.01 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.03 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.38 earnings per share. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Investors of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.30%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. Acuity Brands's payout ratio is currently 5.16%.

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.