Acuity Brands - AYI Stock Forecast, Price & News

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.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on Acuity Brands from $188.00 to $190.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Friday, July 1st. Cowen decreased their price target on shares of Acuity Brands to $225.00 in a research report on Monday, July 4th. Oppenheimer reaffirmed an "outperform" rating and set a $210.00 price objective on shares of Acuity Brands in a research report on Tuesday, July 5th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Acuity Brands from $200.00 to $181.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, June 29th. Finally, William Blair downgraded Acuity Brands from an "outperform" rating to a "market perform" rating in a research report on Thursday, June 23rd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $210.57.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

NYSE:AYI opened at $183.24 on Friday. Acuity Brands has a twelve month low of $142.71 and a twelve month high of $224.59. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.86 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26. The stock has a market cap of $5.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.65, a PEG ratio of 1.58 and a beta of 1.58. The company's 50-day simple moving average is $167.55 and its 200 day simple moving average is $175.53.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI - Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, June 30th. The electronics maker reported $3.30 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.80 by $0.50. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.77% and a net margin of 9.43%. The company had revenue of $1.06 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $988.15 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.62 EPS. The company's revenue was up 17.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that Acuity Brands will post 11.52 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 15th were paid a dividend of $0.13 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, July 14th. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.28%. Acuity Brands's dividend payout ratio is currently 5.01%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Acuity Brands

In other news, CFO Karen J. Holcom sold 5,438 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.20, for a total value of $838,539.60. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 17,138 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,642,679.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Acuity Brands news, Director Laura O'shaughnessy purchased 575 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, July 28th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $174.54 per share, with a total value of $100,360.50. Following the acquisition, the director now directly owns 1,479 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $258,144.66. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Karen J. Holcom sold 5,438 shares of Acuity Brands stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.20, for a total value of $838,539.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 17,138 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,642,679.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 1.20% of the company's stock.