Acuity Brands, Inc. provides lighting and building management solutions in North America and internationally. The company operates through 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 Lithonia Lighting, Holophane, Peerless, Gotham, Mark Architectural Lighting, Winona Lighting, Juno, Indy, Aculux, Healthcare Lighting, Hydrel, American Electric Lighting, Sunoptics, eldoLED, nLight, Sensor Switch, IOTA, A-Light, Cyclone, Eureka, Lumniaire LED, Luminis, Dark to Light, and RELOC Wiring Solutions brands. This segment serves electrical distributors, retail home improvement centers, electric utilities, national accounts, digital retailers, lighting showrooms, and energy service companies. The ISG segment offers building management systems and location-aware applications under the Distech Controls, Atrius, and Rockpile Ventures brands. This segment serves system integrators, as well as retail stores, airports, and enterprise campuses. Acuity Brands, Inc. was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth
A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on AYI shares. Cowen decreased their price target on Acuity Brands to $225.00 in a research note on Monday, July 4th. Credit Suisse Group lowered their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $241.00 to $211.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 27th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Saturday, July 9th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $200.00 to $181.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 29th. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $188.00 to $190.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Friday, July 1st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $210.57.
Acuity Brands Stock Up 0.0 %
NYSE:AYI traded up $0.04 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $185.86. 183,807 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 291,890. Acuity Brands has a 12-month low of $142.71 and a 12-month high of $224.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a current ratio of 1.86 and a quick ratio of 1.19. The firm has a market cap of $6.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 1.58. The company's 50 day simple moving average is $167.58 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $175.37.
Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI - Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, June 30th. The electronics maker reported $3.30 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.80 by $0.50. The company had revenue of $1.06 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $988.15 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 9.43% and a return on equity of 19.77%. Acuity Brands's revenue was up 17.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.62 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Acuity Brands will post 11.52 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Acuity Brands Announces Dividend
The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 1st. Investors of record on Friday, July 15th were paid a dividend of $0.13 per share. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.28%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 14th. Acuity Brands's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 5.01%.
Insider Activity at Acuity Brands
In other news, Director Laura O'shaughnessy bought 575 shares of Acuity Brands stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 28th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $174.54 per share, for a total transaction of $100,360.50. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 1,479 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $258,144.66. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 906 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Friday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $177.47, for a total transaction of $160,787.82. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 4,749 shares of the company's stock, valued at $842,805.03. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Laura O'shaughnessy acquired 575 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 28th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $174.54 per share, with a total value of $100,360.50. Following the acquisition, the director now owns 1,479 shares in the company, valued at approximately $258,144.66. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. 1.20% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.
