Summit Investment Advisors Inc. Sells 190 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Summit Investment Advisors Inc. lessened its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 3.0% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 6,122 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after selling 190 shares during the period. Summit Investment Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,788,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas bought a new position in Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $3,849,000. Merit Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth $232,000. Smith Group Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at $19,703,000. Stifel Financial Corp boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 12.3% during the third quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 7,642 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $2,105,000 after buying an additional 835 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Diversified Trust Co increased its holdings in Acuity Brands by 83.1% in the 4th quarter. Diversified Trust Co now owns 5,119 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,495,000 after buying an additional 2,323 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AYI has been the topic of several research analyst reports. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Robert W. Baird lowered their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $310.00 to $295.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 4th. Morgan Stanley set a $335.00 target price on shares of Acuity Brands in a report on Friday, April 4th. Oppenheimer boosted their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on Acuity Brands from $290.00 to $275.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note 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. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $317.60.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 1.1 %

Shares of AYI stock opened at $236.30 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12 month low of $216.81 and a 12 month high of $345.30. The stock has a market cap of $7.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.40, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.43. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $277.68 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $301.58.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.67 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $1.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. Acuity Brands’s revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.38 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.29%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is currently 5.16%.

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.