Man Group plc Has $19.02 Million Stock Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Man Group plc raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI - Free Report) by 5.0% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 65,103 shares of the electronics maker's stock after purchasing an additional 3,111 shares during the quarter. Man Group plc owned about 0.21% of Acuity Brands worth $19,019,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Nomura Holdings Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $1,185,000. Nuveen Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 32.0% during the fourth quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 83,369 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $24,355,000 after purchasing an additional 20,190 shares in the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 5.9% during the fourth quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 212,391 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $62,046,000 after purchasing an additional 11,898 shares in the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 441.6% during the fourth quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 36,075 shares of the electronics maker's stock valued at $10,537,000 after purchasing an additional 29,414 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC acquired a new stake in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $4,105,000. 98.21% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on AYI shares. Morgan Stanley set a $335.00 price target on Acuity Brands in a research report on Friday, April 4th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price target on Acuity Brands from $290.00 to $275.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 4th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price target on Acuity Brands from $310.00 to $295.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 4th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Acuity Brands from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $317.60.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 0.6%

Acuity Brands stock traded down $1.53 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $269.50. 170,878 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 303,626. 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 company's 50 day simple moving average is $251.89 and its 200-day simple moving average is $292.75. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.85, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.60. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $216.81 and a fifty-two week high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.67 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $1.01 billion for 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%. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.38 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th were paid a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 17th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.25%. 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.