Hancock Whitney Corp Purchases 1,917 Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Hancock Whitney Corp raised its position in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 42.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 6,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 1,917 shares during the period. Hancock Whitney Corp’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,784,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of AYI. 1832 Asset Management L.P. lifted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 9.3% during the first quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 3,451 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $927,000 after acquiring an additional 294 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 4.9% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 23,789 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $6,394,000 after buying an additional 1,108 shares during the last quarter. Redwood Investment Management LLC bought a new position in Acuity Brands during the first quarter valued at about $1,515,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. bought a new position in Acuity Brands during the first quarter valued at about $27,000. Finally, Swedbank AB purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands during the first quarter worth about $25,188,000. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AYI has been the subject of a number of research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. StockNews.com upgraded Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Acuity Brands from $289.00 to $305.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on Acuity Brands from $315.00 to $370.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $324.00.

Acuity Brands Trading Up 1.1 %

NYSE:AYI opened at $329.79 on Tuesday. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1 year low of $176.93 and a 1 year high of $337.99. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $303.27 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $267.75. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 2.72 and a quick ratio of 2.16. The company has a market cap of $10.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.54, a P/E/G ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 1.40.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 1st. The electronics maker reported $4.30 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.90 by $0.40. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 20.49% and a net margin of 11.00%. The business had revenue of $1.03 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.02 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.74 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 2.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.51 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 18th were given a $0.15 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 18th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.18%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 4.46%.

Insider Activity at Acuity Brands

In other news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total transaction of $1,561,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,438 shares in the company, valued at $2,573,590. The trade was a 37.76 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 1.50% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Acuity Brands Company 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.