Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Trims Position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund lessened its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI - Free Report) by 11.5% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 14,907 shares of the electronics maker's stock after selling 1,928 shares during the quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund's holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $4,355,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of AYI. Creative Planning lifted its position in Acuity Brands by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,811 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $1,050,000 after buying an additional 47 shares during the last quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC bought a new stake in Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $242,000. State of Alaska Department of Revenue lifted its position in Acuity Brands by 7.2% in the 3rd quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue now owns 3,552 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $978,000 after buying an additional 240 shares during the last quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC lifted its position in Acuity Brands by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 13,498 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $3,717,000 after buying an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. Finally, GW Henssler & Associates Ltd. bought a new stake in Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $211,000. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AYI has been the subject of several recent research reports. Morgan Stanley upgraded 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 research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective 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 downgraded Acuity Brands from a "strong-buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Saturday. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted 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 equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 0.7 %

Shares of AYI traded down $2.16 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $296.94. 518,025 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 308,334. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1 year low of $217.64 and a 1 year high of $345.30. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.87, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. The business's 50-day moving average price is $316.80 and its 200-day moving average price is $300.61.

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 (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The business's 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 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.23%. This is a boost from Acuity Brands's previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands's dividend payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

About Acuity Brands

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.