Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Bought by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp

Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp increased its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI - Free Report) by 8.6% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 25,390 shares of the electronics maker's stock after buying an additional 2,004 shares during the quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp owned about 0.08% of Acuity Brands worth $7,417,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Prudential Financial Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 135.8% in the 4th quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. now owns 180,272 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $52,663,000 after purchasing an additional 103,818 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 16,407 shares during the last quarter. Stevens Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at about $319,000. LPL Financial LLC increased its stake in Acuity Brands by 78.8% during the fourth quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 12,061 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $3,523,000 after acquiring an additional 5,316 shares during the last quarter. Finally, KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth about $6,923,000. 98.21% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on AYI. StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a "strong-buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an "equal weight" rating to an "overweight" rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price target on Acuity Brands from $290.00 to $275.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a report on Friday. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $324.60.

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Acuity Brands Stock Down 9.4 %

Shares of AYI stock traded down $24.11 on Friday, hitting $233.15. The stock had a trading volume of 1,524,952 shares, compared to its average volume of 286,290. The stock's 50 day moving average is $294.09 and its 200-day moving average is $303.75. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.17, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 52-week low of $217.64 and a 52-week high of $345.30. 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 Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 firm had revenue of $1.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $3.38 EPS. The firm's revenue was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.29%. 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.