Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Shares Bought by Schroder Investment Management Group

Schroder Investment Management Group lifted its stake in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI - Free Report) by 431.2% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 84,953 shares of the electronics maker's stock after purchasing an additional 68,959 shares during the period. Schroder Investment Management Group owned approximately 0.27% of Acuity Brands worth $24,991,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in Acuity Brands during the third quarter worth $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $40,000. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 63.8% during the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 172 shares of the electronics maker's stock worth $50,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AYI has been the subject of several research reports. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on Acuity Brands from $290.00 to $275.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research note 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. Oppenheimer increased their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley set a $335.00 price objective on Acuity Brands in a research report on Friday. Finally, StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Friday. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $317.60.

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Acuity Brands Trading Down 2.6 %

Shares of NYSE:AYI traded down $6.15 during trading on Monday, reaching $227.43. The stock had a trading volume of 861,366 shares, compared to its average volume of 288,489. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The stock has a market cap of $7.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.75, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.43. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $292.07 and a 200-day moving average price of $303.96. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $217.64 and a fifty-two week high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.67 by $0.06. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. 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 firm posted $3.38 EPS. Acuity Brands's revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

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