Should You Buy Acuity Brands (AYI)?

Investment management company Vulcan Value Partners recently released its first-quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The firm has five strategies, and all gained positive returns and outperformed their respective benchmark indexes in the first quarter. The fund’s Large-Cap Composite returned 14.0% net of fees and expenses, the Small Cap Composite returned 8.1% net, the Focus Composite returned 20.4% net, the Focus Plus composite returned 20.4%, and the All-Cap Composite returned 16.8% net. You can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2023.

Vulcan Value Partners highlighted stocks like Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) in the first quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) is a lighting and building management solutions provider. On May 4, 2023, Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) stock closed at $154.95 per share. One-month return of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) was -2.34%, and its shares lost 6.95% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) has a market capitalization of $4.927 billion.

Vulcan Value Partners made the following comment about Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) in its Q1 2023 investor letter:

“Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) is the leading provider of lighting and building management solutions in North America. The company’s competitive moat is its scale in manufacturing, distribution, product breadth, product innovation, supply chain, customer servicing and some exclusive supply agreements. Acuity has been able to increase prices to pass through cost increases. Gross margins have been stable in the 40% range for several years. Acuity generates significant free cash flow. We believe the management team are good capital allocators, and the company has repurchased 20% of outstanding shares since 2020.”

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Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 32 hedge fund portfolios held Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) at the end of the fourth quarter which was 35 in the previous quarter.

We discussed Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) in another article and shared the list of biggest lighting companies in the world. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2023 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.