Acuity Q2 2026 Earnings Results & Report

Acuity EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $4.14
• Consensus EPS: $4.11
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: $2.45
• EPS Beat Rate: 8 of last 8 quarters

Acuity Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.06 billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.09 billion
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$30.47 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +4.90%

Acuity (NYSE:AYI) (NYSE: AYI) is a technology company that provides lighting, lighting controls and building-management solutions for commercial, institutional, industrial and residential environments. Its products are designed to improve illumination, energy efficiency, automation and the overall performance of indoor and outdoor spaces.

The company offers a broad portfolio of lighting fixtures, controls, sensors and connected-building technologies. Its brands and product lines have included Lithonia Lighting, Holophane, Peerless, SensorSwitch, Distech Controls and Atrius. Acuity also provides solutions that integrate lighting, HVAC and other building systems, helping customers manage facilities through connected hardware and software.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Acuity serves customers in North America and international markets through sales, distribution and project-based channels. The company traces its roots to the lighting operations of National Service Industries and became an independent public company in 2001. Neil Ashe serves as chairman, president and chief executive officer.

Acuity Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Negative Sentiment: ABL sales outlook lowered — management now expects Acuity Brands Lighting sales to be flat to down low single digits for the year, citing softer direct-channel project activity and slower project releases.
• Positive Sentiment: ABL margin recovery — ABL delivered a 70 basis-point increase in gross profit margin driven by strategic pricing, product and productivity improvements, supporting adjusted operating profit despite lower sales.
• Positive Sentiment: Acuity Intelligent Spaces (AIS) momentum — AIS sales rose (including an extra month of QSC), continues to grow at low‑ to mid‑teens (guidance unchanged), and benefits from QSC, Distech and Atrius integration and product awards.
• Positive Sentiment: Strong cash generation and disciplined capital allocation — $230 million of operating cash flow in H1, $200 million of term‑loan repayments (remaining $200M), an 18% dividend increase, and $106 million in share repurchases this quarter.
• Negative Sentiment: Demand and supply headwinds — management highlighted longer quote‑to‑release timelines (projects stuck in pipeline), data‑center “crowding out” of labor and memory, and tight memory supply that could pressure near‑term availability and costs.

Presentation

[Operator]

Morning, and welcome to the Acuity Fiscal 2026 second quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, the company will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Charlotte McLaughlin, Vice President of Investor Relations. Charlotte, please go ahead.

[Charlotte McLaughlin, VP of Investor Relations at Acuity]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to the Acuity Fiscal 2026 second quarter earnings call. On the call with me this morning are Neil Ashe, our Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Karen Holcom, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today's call will include updates on our strategic progress and our fiscal 2026 second quarter performance. There will be an opportunity for Q&A at the end of the call. As a reminder, some of our comments today may be forward-looking statements. We intend these forward-looking statements to be covered by the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as detailed on slide two of the accompanying presentation.

[Charlotte McLaughlin, VP of Investor Relations at Acuity]

Reconciliations of certain non-GAAP financial metrics with their corresponding GAAP measures are available in our 2026 second quarter earnings release and supplemental presentation, both of which are available on our investor relations website at www.investors.acuityinc.com. Thank you for your interest in Acuity. I will now turn the call over to Neil Ashe.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you all for joining us today. We demonstrated strong execution in our second quarter of fiscal 2026. We grew net sales, we expanded our adjusted operating profit and adjusted operating profit margin, and we increased our adjusted diluted earnings per share. We generated strong cash flow and allocated capital effectively. In Acuity Brands Lighting, we are managing our business aggressively in a soft lighting environment. We are aligning our cost structure to current market dynamics while continuing to serve customers effectively. Over the last five years, we have made meaningful progress accelerating our strategy of increasing product vitality, elevating service levels, using technology to improve and differentiate both our products and how we operate the business and driving productivity. These efforts have expanded capacity in our manufacturing network and given us greater flexibility to evaluate our production costs.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

As a result, this quarter we took certain actions, including targeted labor cost reductions, which Karen Holcom will discuss later in the call. We are managing gross profit margin through the combination of strategic pricing and product and productivity improvements. This enables us to deliver in this market environment and positions us well for the future. Now, I want to spend a moment on our growth algorithm, which is designed to ensure that we outgrow the lighting market. We enter new verticals, we take share, and we grow with the market. Last year, we strengthened our floodlight portfolio with the acquisition of M3 Innovation. These solutions are used in education, municipalities, and infrastructure and are designed to reduce total installation costs and enhance the user experience. We have won several notable projects that include retrofit and new construction across verticals, including parks and rec and education.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

One of our larger projects was an installation at Baldwinsville High School in New York. This project retrofitted an existing football field and installed our solution at a new athletics field. Combined with our lighting controls, we created dynamic control capabilities for a high-impact game day environment across both facilities, all managed from a single control device. The industry continues to recognize the strength of our products and the value they bring our customers. This quarter, several products in our portfolio were awarded the Architecture MasterPrize by the Farmani Group, including the Eureka Junction, a made-to-order luminaire that can be configured to create custom installations that are compatible with our nLight controls for use in large, shared interior spaces such as lobbies, atriums, reception areas, and event venues.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Multiple products were also awarded product innovation awards by Architectural Products Magazine, including the Juno Trac Linear Ambient family in our Design Select portfolio that offers architects, lighting designers, and installers versatile options for combining accent and ambient illumination within a single system, simplifying specification and expanding creative possibilities. Now, switching to Acuity Intelligent Spaces, which continue to deliver strong sales and margin performance. Atrius and Distech Controls control the management of the space, and QSC manages the experiences in the space. Over time, we will use data from both to enhance productivity outcomes through data interoperability. Taken together, this is how we can make spaces autonomous. Both Distech and QSC performed well this quarter. Within Distech Controls, our Eclipse portfolio is a strategic differentiator. It is a comprehensive building automation platform that unifies hardware and software into a cohesive ecosystem for intelligent building management.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

The portfolio includes hardware devices and software used to manage how a building operates, including HVAC control, lighting, and refrigeration. During the quarter, we released the Eclipse Retrofit Solution, a building controls upgrade designed for use in buildings with legacy wiring and control architectures. This solution allows newer Eclipse-based control capabilities to be deployed, providing IP-based performance, embedded edge intelligence, and modern user interfaces without the associated cost or disruption of completely rewiring the space. We are also expanding our addressable market at QSC. Q-SYS is building the industry's most innovative full stack AV platform that unifies data, devices, and a cloud-first architecture to deliver real-time action, experiences, and insights. Historically, the Q-SYS solutions were developed for use in large rooms and spaces. This quarter, we expanded our Q-SYS solution into smaller and medium-sized collaboration spaces with the introduction of the RoomSuite Modular System.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

This gives customers the option to increase their room capabilities using audio, video, and integrated networking, all supported by Q-SYS Reflect. AIS continues to gain industry recognition. Earlier this quarter, the Q-SYS RoomSuite Modular System won the Best of Show Award at the ISE 2026 in Europe, the largest AV trade show in the world. While Q-SYS loudspeakers won in both the NAMM Best of Show Award and in the NAMM TEC Awards. Distech Controls received the 2025 Global Company of the Year for Excellence in Integrated Smart Building Solutions by Frost & Sullivan, and won the Smart HVAC Product of the Year category at the U.K. HVR Awards for our Resense Move. Now, moving to our outlook. Acuity Brands Lighting remains the best performing lighting company in the world.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Given our performance year to date and our expectations for the lighting market for the remainder of the year, we now expect our full-year ABL sales performance will be flat to down low single digits year-over-year. We will continue to control what we can control. We are focused on product vitality, elevating service levels, using technology to improve and differentiate both our products and how we operate the business, and driving productivity. We are executing on our growth algorithm. We are managing gross profit margin through the combination of strategic pricing and product and productivity improvements. This positions us well for today and for the future. Acuity Intelligent Spaces is strategically differentiated. We have unique and disruptive technologies that are driving productivity for people experiencing spaces and for the people providing those spaces.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Our focus will continue to be on growth, and we have the opportunity to expand margins over time. We are confident in the long-term performance of both the lighting and spaces businesses. We have demonstrated that we have dexterity in how we operate, enabling us to continue to execute in dynamic market conditions. Now, I'll turn the call over to Karen, who will update you on our second quarter performance.

[Karen Holcom, SVP and CFO at Acuity]

Thank you, Neil, and good morning, everyone. Our strong execution delivered solid performance in the second quarter of fiscal 2026. We grew net sales, improved adjusted operating profit and adjusted operating profit margin, and increased our adjusted diluted earnings per share. For total Acuity, we generated net sales of $1.1 billion, which was $49 million or 5% above the prior year. This was driven by growth in AIS, which included an additional month of QSC sales, partially offset by revenue declines at ABL. During the quarter, our adjusted operating profit was $176 million, an increase of $13 million or 8% from last year. Adjusted operating profit margin during the quarter was 16.7%, an increase of 50 basis points from the prior year, with margin improvements at both ABL and AIS.

[Karen Holcom, SVP and CFO at Acuity]

Our adjusted diluted earnings per share was $4.14, which was an increase of $0.41 or 11% compared to the prior year, primarily reflecting higher profitability and to a lesser extent, lower diluted shares outstanding. ABL sales of $817 million decreased $23 million or 3% versus the prior year, driven by declines in the direct sales channel. This was due in part to several large projects in the same period last year that did not repeat. Despite the sales declines, ABL delivered gross profit margin of 45.7%, an increase of 70 basis points compared to the prior year, driven largely by strategic pricing and product and productivity improvements.

[Karen Holcom, SVP and CFO at Acuity]

Adjusted operating profit increased $1 million-$142 million, and we delivered adjusted operating profit margin of 17.3%, which was an improvement of 50 basis points compared to the prior year. This is a result of the improvement in gross profit margin. As Neil mentioned earlier, this quarter, as a result of our productivity improvements, we took certain actions, including the reduction of labor. This resulted in a $6 million special charge. Now, moving to Acuity Intelligent Spaces. Sales for the second quarter were $248 million, an increase of $77 million, driven by strong growth in Distech and QSC, and as a result of the inclusion of an additional one month of QSC compared to last year.

[Karen Holcom, SVP and CFO at Acuity]

AIS delivered adjusted gross profit margin of 59.1%, an increase of 60 basis points compared to the prior year. Adjusted operating profit in Intelligent Spaces was $48 million, with an adjusted operating profit margin of 19.3%, which was up 60 basis points compared to the prior year. Now, turning to our cash flow performance. In the first half of fiscal 2026, we generated $230 million of cash flow from operations, which was $38 million higher than the same period in fiscal 2025, primarily due to higher profitability. During the quarter, we repaid another $100 million of our term loan, bringing the total repaid this year to $200 million. We now have $200 million of the debt remaining from the financing of the QSC acquisition.

[Karen Holcom, SVP and CFO at Acuity]

We increased our quarterly dividend during our January shareholder meeting by 18% to $0.20 per share, and we allocated $106 million to repurchase 318,000 shares. In summary, our execution remains strong. ABL is driving margin improvement in the current market environment, and AIS continues to perform. We continue to generate strong cash flow and allocate capital effectively, aggressively taking advantage of market dislocations. Thank you for joining us today. I will now pass you over to the operator to take your questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our first question comes from Joe O'Dea at Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

[Joe O'Dea, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Can we just start on demand trends? When you think about what you've observed in ABL year to date and the prior outlook for up low single digits, you know, now seeing kind of flat to down low single digits, just additional color on these demand trends, and in particular, what you're seeing in independent sales network, where things have trended softer, you know, regionally by end market. On the direct sales network side of things, the project business that didn't recur, whether you had line of sight to that or if that was a surprise. Long-winded question, but you know, just what you're seeing on market share trends, with respect to kind of the softer market you see, versus peers.

[Joe O'Dea, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

I guess some questions out there whether price has any impact on demand trends for you.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Morning, Joe. Anything else you wanna add before we get started?

[Joe O'Dea, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

I got a follow-up too.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

No, just kidding.

[Joe O'Dea, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

No.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Okay. Good. All right. We'll save that for after we start. Let's first talk about general demand trends, and I'd highlight really two things that we think are going on. The first we've been highly consistent about, which is we believe that the market is looking for consistency, or at least consistent direction around policy, around tariffs, around rates, et cetera. The second is the impact of data centers and their flow-through on everything else. They're creating a bit of a crowding out, both from a labor perspective, and I'm sure we'll talk about memory at some point in the call, but their impact on the market is being felt.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

The way that manifests is that on the lighting side, there are a significant number of projects that are in queue in either our independent sales network or our direct sales network, which are releasing at slower paces than they have historically. Our conversion rates are about the same, but the time to release is increasing. We've talked about this in other quarters where we think there's a sort of a gumming up that's going on in the marketplace, and that's really what we're seeing from a demand perspective. Second, yes, on the direct sales network, we expected this. We had large projects last year, as Karen mentioned in the prepared remarks, which did not repeat.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

There are large projects in the future which will come along. Those are largely infrastructure projects. We do think that those were at least mildly impacted. This obviously does not affect year-over-year, but they were mildly impacted by the government shutdown because basically decisions permitting and funding were stalled for a while. There's a little bit of ripple effect that's going through that. I believe your third question was around market share and price. We have no indication that we are down in market share.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

As we've talked about in strategic pricing, what strategic pricing means for us generally is that we price our products to the value that they deliver to the market, number one. Number two is we don't have necessarily a universal pricing strategy. In other words, at places in the market where we choose to be very competitive, we will be very competitive. At other places where we choose to take price, we will take price. The net of which is we're managing the relationship between top-line and profitability while maintaining our market leadership position. I think those were the three questions. Did I miss anything?

[Joe O'Dea, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

No, you get all three parts. I appreciate the color there. Just a separate topic and on the tariff side of things. You know, some news last night on potential for a presidential proclamation that finished products made with imported steel and aluminum could be tariff to 25% instead of 50% on just the steel and aluminum content. You know, I'm sure things that are in process in terms of working through, but how you're thinking about that, it seems like something that would not have USMCA compliance protection. There's perhaps a 15% threshold below which you'd be exempt. You know, just big picture, how you're thinking about this development, any potential impact? Are most of your products below that 15% steel and aluminum content?

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Yeah. Obviously we're reading about this at the same time everyone else is, and we haven't seen whatever the order would be. This would be speculation. Let me take a step back and talk about tariffs generally, because I think it's a topic worth diving in a little bit about. We have, in our opinion, the most dynamic, well-executed supply chain in the industry. Our ability to manage through the tariffs has largely been attributed to A, strategy, B, hard work, and C, kind of location and direction. We've been able to manage through the process so far, largely through qualifying new suppliers, identifying appropriate location, re-engineering products.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

In short, a tremendous amount of work by our team here. As a result, I think we're in a really strong position versus our opportunity. When things like this change, we adapt to whatever that change is, and what we've demonstrated is that we can adapt very, very quickly. Big picture, most of our steel and aluminum 232 does go through USMCA, so that would continue. A large portion of our products are unaffected because of the thresholds you described. Having said that, we haven't seen it yet, so that remains up for potential change if we see the order and it's somehow different than we expect.

[Joe O'Dea, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

Got it. Appreciate that. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Chris Snyder with Morgan Stanley.

[Chris Snyder, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Thank you. I wanted to ask on ABL gross margin. You know, I don't think anyone would have expected ABL gross margins to be up 70 basis points year-over-year despite volume declines and a lot of the, you know, very clear tariff pressure in the market. Can you maybe unpack a little bit, you know, the drivers there? I would imagine it's a combination of productivity and price cost. You know, kind of how is the company achieving that in an industry that's known to be so competitive? Then I guess just looking forward, what gives you confidence that ABL gross margin can continue to grow, you know, after all the expansion we've seen already the last three years? Thank you.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Yeah, Chris, I'll start. Karen, dive in if I leave anything out. Big picture, you know, kind of this time last year, around this time last year, we talked about the impact of tariffs and our build and our need to basically take a year to work through the productivity necessary to regain kind of where we were. The quick summary, Chris, is that we're working through the productivity as we described to catch up the year of tariff impact on our gross profit margin. You know, sort of similar to the tariff answer I gave a second ago, it's a lot of hard work around product and productivity improvements.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

That is, you know, the redesigning of products. That's the redesigning of our manufacturing footprint. That's the inclusion of some automation. It's a combination of things which are driving that. As we look forward then around our product and productivity improvements, we're confident in our ability to continue down this path. It's not magic. It's hard work, but there's a lot that goes into that. It's the impact of some of the technology investments that we're making in the SD&A line. It's the better, smarter, faster operating system and how we re-engineer basically everything that we do.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

As we look forward, the combination of product changes, of productivity in our facilities, of our material productivity, will continue to drive the increases in gross profit margin.

[Chris Snyder, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Thank you. I appreciate that. I want to follow up on, you know, I guess it's been going on for a while, this intersection of, you know, kind of technology and industrials, and it's, you know, I think it's intensifying now with AI, you know, and what that can mean. I wanted to just ask you, Neil, just given your background, you know, what does this intersection of AI and I guess specifically building controls, you know, what does it mean for Acuity? You know, do you view it as more opportunity than risk? And ultimately, why do you think Acuity is positioned to win, you know, as AI, you know, more increasingly penetrates the building? Thank you.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Yeah. Joe, thanks for that question. I think I'll take a big picture perspective on this and then dive into the impact on both AIS and ABL. As you mentioned, I've been through these transformations before and they rhyme if they're not always completely consistent. You've heard the truism that the impact in the short term is generally overestimated, and the impact of the long term is underestimated. My view is that that will be true in spades in AI. I would say I and we are AI maximalists. We are incredibly positive on the impact it's going to have on our business.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

I do believe though that with AI, the benefits will be spread across everyone, so everyone will get some benefit and declare victory. There will be a subset, though, that have tremendous benefit, and those are the companies and organizations that have the scale, the resources, and most importantly, the ability to use the technology to change their businesses. The hard part is changing the business, and that's what we're really good at. I think that positions us extremely well. The impact of that technology manifests itself really in two ways. It manifests itself in the products that we present to our customers and end users, and in how we operate the business.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Specifically to your question around AIS, that would be a good example of where the AI inserts into the products and services that we present to customers and end users. That will drive the data integration between Atrius, Distech, and QSC. It will drive the data integration among the different components of each of Distech and QSC, for example. We're well underway with that process now. Second, around ABL. This gives us a new tool to the first half of your question, to continue to drive the impact on the business through the re-engineering of the processes which are core to the execution of the business. That's a process we're underway with now. We're at the beginning stages of as well.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

If you take the two together, we have the opportunity to impact both the products and services that we provide to customers and users, as well as driving the productivity in our business. We're net very positive. I think the negative cases that are talked about generally, at least as it relates to kind of where we live in the market, put software aside, for a second, are built on the premise that AI can do anything. While that may be true, just because you can doesn't mean you should or you will.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

If we think about, you know, where our end users and customers are going to devote their resources, it's probably not going to be figuring out how to dim lights or connect cameras and displays in their corporate conference rooms, or in their entertainment parks or in their NFL stadiums. We feel really, really good about where we sit, number one, about our ability to capitalize on AI, number two, and number three, the ultimate defensibility of both of those.

[Chris Snyder, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Thank you. I very much appreciate that.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Ryan Merkel with William Blair.

[Ryan Merkel, Co-Group Head of Industrials at William Blair]

Hey, everyone. Thanks for the question. Neil or Karen, can you comment on if you're seeing any cost pressures and are you considering raising prices in the second half of the year?

[Karen Holcom, SVP and CFO at Acuity]

Yeah, Ryan, let me start with what Neil was talking about with the impact of data centers first. With the impact of data centers, obviously that's had some impact on labor availability, which is impacting demand, but it's also impacting memory availability. When we think about that, we think about it as a supply shock, just like others that we've had in the past. Here's what we're focused on, similar to what we've done around tariffs. First, you know, we want to make sure we have the right availability of components for our customers. Then second, we will make sure we cover the dollar impact of any of those increases. Then finally, over time, we'll make sure to address any margin impact, just like we've done and Neil described with the tariff situation.

[Karen Holcom, SVP and CFO at Acuity]

That's really where we're seeing a little bit of the pressure right now, but we will manage through it as we've done before.

[Ryan Merkel, Co-Group Head of Industrials at William Blair]

All right. Got it. My second question is on AIS. Can you just comment on if the outlook has changed and what kind of demand signals you're seeing right now?

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Yeah, I'll take that one, Ryan. The short answer is no, but the longer answer is, we feel really good about how this business is coming together. We are now anniversarying QSC as part of our organization, so it's kind of hard to believe it's only been a year. They are fully integrated now as part of AIS. They are seeing the benefits of being part of Acuity. We are seeing the benefits of putting Atrius, Distech, and QSC together. We feel really, really good about where they stand.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

In terms of, you know, kind of long-term opportunity, both in the building space, in the integrated AV space, and then in the consolidated space, we feel exactly the same as we have before. The short answer is we feel really good about where we are. If we take the first half, they're spot on from a top-line perspective, where we expect them to be, and we feel good about where they're positioned for the future.

[Ryan Merkel, Co-Group Head of Industrials at William Blair]

Got it. All right, thanks. I'll pass it on.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Christopher Glynn with Oppenheimer.

[Christopher Glynn, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Thanks. Good morning. A lot of interesting ground covered here today. I had a question on the ABL outlook for kind of flat to down now. You know, that you know, arguably suggests the second half shows a little more resilience in the year-over-year versus second quarter or probably no worse. You know, it might be intuitive that the data center draw on the rest of the market might be intensifying. Just wanted to put some qualitative on that kind of top-line indication you gave for ABL.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Yeah. I'll take that one and then Karen, if I leave anything off. First I'd say basically for the first half of the year, ABL is basically down about 1%, and we have really tough comps from all of the order adds from this time last year now that we're starting to anniversary. That's, you know, the synopsis basically of what's going on at ABL. I think going into the year, it's fair to say we had expectations that then became hopes, which now we don't count on anymore, that the market would start to normalize and free up a little bit.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

You know everything that's happened between when we made that plan and where we are from a global macro perspective at this point. That's largely what's going on. We're executing through that. You know, I tell you an anecdote to explain kind of the impact of data center. I was talking to one contractor who's actually a Distech supplier, mechanical contractor who does a lot of data center work. You know, what he said to me was, you know, I think three things which I found really interesting. The first is that they could devote 100% of their capacity to data centers, and they have twice the margin on data centers that they have on anything else.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

The second thing he said was they're not gonna do that though, because he recognizes that data centers won't last forever, and he doesn't wanna alienate all his existing customers for the next stage. People are starting to see or to balance for that. Finally he said basically all of his controls people, their business at this point is to rip everything else out and replace it with Distech because they think Distech performs so well. You know, the reference project he gave me was the concourse at Atlanta Hartsfield. It's the first time in 25 years anything other than the legacy provider has been in Hartsfield and now Distech is.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

I think that's a quick synopsis and the color of like the texture of how this is playing out on the ground.

[Christopher Glynn, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Nice anecdote on Distech there. Just wanted to follow up on capital allocation. You know, with the stock going down, I might have guessed you'd buy back more shares. You seem really intent on eliminating the Distech debt, but you know, optically at least the leverage is negligible. Just curious how you're thinking about that. The third component that I didn't mention would be the pipeline.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

As Karen Holcom indicated in her prepared remarks, when we see an opportunity, we attempt to realize it on the share repurchase perspective. Yes, we've obviously blown through what we had set as our original expectations and obviously we will continue to do that as we see the stock where we think it's, you know, kind of at attractive levels. The second, on the paydown of debt, that's simply a function of we have that much cash, so there's no reason to have a negative carry while we're there. We would be completely comfortable operating with leverage were we to find the appropriate use for that leverage, which gets me to the third point, which is acquisition pipeline.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

We continue to have strong pipeline opportunities. Our focus continues to be on expanding AIS and making it a continually large part of the business. Our priorities remain the same. We'll invest to grow the current businesses, and that's, you know, kind of through things like CapEx, maybe through things like OpEx if we wanna accelerate organic product development, number one. Number two, as you saw, we increased the dividend in January for the year. Number three, we have a strong pipeline for acquisitions. Number four, when we see ourselves in situations like this where the multiple compresses so dramatically, we see an opportunity to repurchase, and we do.

[Christopher Glynn, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Thanks, Neil.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs.

[Tyler Bisset, Equity Research Associate at Goldman Sachs]

Hey, guys. This is Tyler Bisset on for Brian. Thanks for taking our questions. I guess just first, can you provide any additional commentary on the cross-selling opportunity with QSC? Just what has been the early customer feedback so far, and how are you envisioning the continued rollout of this product?

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Yeah. Well, let me start first and foundationally there, they are the leading full stack AV provider in the world. We highlighted the ISE Best of Show Award because that is literally the global center of the industry, which basically says that's the industry saying they're the best in the industry. There's a strong foundational opportunity to continue to grow, excuse me, what they currently have. The opportunity for cross-sell is then kind of the cherry on top, if you will. That is coming through in examples we highlighted in the last call, where, for example, we integrated some Distech products, the Resense Move with Q-SYS and the broader Q-SYS Kit to provide a unique office solution in India.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Second, we have, interestingly, a large overlap of customer base. You know, I used to like to say about Distech, and now I can say the same thing about Q-SYS, which is that the smartest customers buy our products. Our end user councils end up being a lot of the same folks. Interestingly, though, even in those, it's not necessarily the same individuals who are making those decisions. We believe that the cross-sell opportunity ultimately is end-user driven, where the companies start to realize the benefit at a more senior level than these individual products have historically been evaluated. That's what we mean when we talk about driving productivity for the people in the spaces and the people who are providing those spaces.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

We see good traction on that. Then finally, we also see some traction around AIS and ABL cross-sells, which will be a topic for a later conversation.

[Tyler Bisset, Equity Research Associate at Goldman Sachs]

Perfect. Really appreciate the color. That's it from us. Thanks.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Jeffrey Sprague with Vertical Research Partners.

[Jeffrey Sprague, Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

Hey, thanks. Good morning, everyone. I wonder if we could just kind of come back to the question of memory, and certainly the color on data center crowding out, contracting is certainly very interesting. But I'm kinda more curious just on the kinda core supply side of memory, sort of the nature of memory that you yourself need for your, you know, for your business, and whether or not you actually do have secure source of supply here, as things get much tighter.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Thanks for the question, Jeff. As Karen mentioned, this is a supply shock, and we're starting to see a continuing cadence of supply shocks. I guess pretty soon we're not gonna have to call them shocks anymore, but we'll call them supply something else. In this case, our playbook for dealing with this is first to ensure that we have availability. Second, to cover the dollar cost impact through multiple ways. That's productivity and price. Then finally regain the margin. You've kind of watched us do that with ABL. We're doing the same thing here. Yes, we've started by ensuring that we have availability. It's a dynamic market. This is a market that's changing on a monthly basis.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

We are generally very well positioned for availability. That's obviously the primary thing that we're gonna be focused on. You know, our long-term view, I don't know that we have a different long-term view or any greater insight than what you've heard from the general market. I would say that our general view is that while it's really, really tight right now, it is still very fluid. We expect it to be bumpy. We've done things like extend some purchasing in advance, funding in advance so that we make sure that we have availability. We're gonna ride out a little bit to see where availability and price goes over the next, you know, kind of six to 12 months.

[Jeffrey Sprague, Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

Is the reduction in your top-line forecast specifically tied to not having as much memory as you would have needed to make that other forecast?

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

No, there's no impact. Most of the memory would be at AIS, not at ABL.

[Jeffrey Sprague, Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

Okay, great. I was just wondering if you could maybe elaborate a little bit more on the restructuring actions. Is this, you know, another one of many that might be coming, or should we view this as sort of a one-off action here? What kind of payback do you see on the actions that you took here in the quarter?

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

I'll start, Karen, you clean up. Big picture, I wanna emphasize that we've done a lot. This is all ABL related. We've done a lot over the last six years to increase our productivity. That increase in productivity, as a result, has increased our capacity. We have significant capacity. That positions us well for two things. One is to realize some short-term benefits when the market presents us with a need to, and then the second is to meet whatever opportunity there is going forward. Specifically this time, we started to reduce some of the labor in our manufacturing facilities as a result of this productivity improvements and the current demand levels. That's the primary piece of what we did.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Second, we changed a little bit of how we're operating some of the parts of the go-to-market as well, which was more minor. This was not an isolated action, so we will continue to view how our manufacturing network and our supply chain are positioned given this increase in productivity. That'll take us, you know, years, not quarters.

[Jeffrey Sprague, Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Robert Schultz with Baird.

[Robert Schultz, Equity Research Senior Associate at Baird]

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I'm on for Tim this morning. Neil, earlier in the call you referred to the gap between quoting activity and releases. What do you think we really need to see for that gap to close? And just how would you frame current sentiment from agents within your independent sales network today?

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

I want to contextualize this, and then I'll answer your specific question. Contextually, our conversion rate is basically the same that it's always been. That's a 15-year observation, not a two quarter observation. Having said that, the time between quote and release of the projects has gotten longer through this period than it has been in the past. If you deconstruct that says effectively there's still a lot of projects in the pipeline and they're releasing at a slower rate. Our hypothesis is that this is related to things like labor and crowding out that we talked about earlier and maybe some uncertainties around the policies, tariffs, et cetera.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

That's the nuts and bolts of how it happens or how it is happening. In terms of the independent sales network, their view is generally relatively positive. We survey them regularly. We talk to them even more regularly. They are still in hiring mode, so they're adding headcount. Remember, they're independent small, medium-sized businesses, so that comes out of their pocket. I would say that their general view is that this will improve over time.

[Robert Schultz, Equity Research Senior Associate at Baird]

Got it. Just as it relates to the ABL guide, and the revision in sales there, are there any changes to what you guys are thinking about SD&A spend in the back half of the year?

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Well, obviously, we've already taken some actions around SD&A, and as we indicated, as Karen indicated in our prepared remarks, we are managing SD&A really aggressively through this period. Karen, would you add anything to that?

[Karen Holcom, SVP and CFO at Acuity]

Yeah. No, I think that's fair. As Neil mentioned, the charges that we took this quarter at ABL will impact a little bit of the SD&A spend as well, and we just continue to manage aggressively in this market.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

We also, though, will continue our investment in technology. Just to finish that point, Rob, we will continue our investment in technology. Obviously, I covered that pretty extensively earlier, but we will continue that investment.

[Robert Schultz, Equity Research Senior Associate at Baird]

Awesome. Thank you, guys.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Joe O'Dea with Wells Fargo.

[Joe O'Dea, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

Hi. Thanks for fitting me back in. This one's a quick one, but just on the guide, you talked about ABL. Just in terms of AIS revenue, are you still looking for low- to mid-teens growth there for the year? Any change to the EPS guidance range?

[Karen Holcom, SVP and CFO at Acuity]

Yeah, Joe, thanks for asking. Yes, no change to AIS. Growth still low- to mid-teens%, and no change in EPS as well.

[Joe O'Dea, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

Thank you.

[Karen Holcom, SVP and CFO at Acuity]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions in queue at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to Neil Ashe for any closing remarks.

[Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO at Acuity]

Great. Well, thank you all for joining us this morning. I would say that I am pleased and proud of the execution that our company is showing through these dynamic market environments. At ABL, we are clearly the market leader. We are managing gross profit margin despite lower sales. At AIS, we are differentiated, and we continue to grow and change the industry. I feel really good about where we are going forward, and we look forward to talking to you again in another quarter.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Charlotte McLaughlin, VP of Investor Relations
• Karen Holcom, SVP and CFO
• Neil Ashe, Chairman, President, and CEO

Analysts

• Chris Snyder, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley
• Christopher Glynn, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer
• Jeffrey Sprague, Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners
• Joe O'Dea, Managing Director at Wells Fargo
• Robert Schultz, Equity Research Senior Associate at Baird
• Ryan Merkel, Co-Group Head of Industrials at William Blair
• Tyler Bisset, Equity Research Associate at Goldman Sachs