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 Analyst Weigh In
A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $200.00 to $181.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, June 29th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $188.00 to $190.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Friday, July 1st. Credit Suisse Group reduced their target price on Acuity Brands from $241.00 to $211.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a report on Monday, June 27th. Oppenheimer reissued an "outperform" rating and set a $210.00 price target on shares of Acuity Brands in a report on Tuesday, July 5th. Finally, William Blair lowered Acuity Brands from an "outperform" rating to a "market perform" rating in a research note on Thursday, June 23rd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $210.57.
Acuity Brands Price Performance
AYI Stock traded up $3.54 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $178.97. 184,003 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 264,924. Acuity Brands has a 52 week low of $142.71 and a 52 week high of $224.59. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $167.34 and a 200 day moving average price of $176.01. 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 stock has a market capitalization of $5.85 billion, a PE ratio of 17.24, a P/E/G ratio of 1.55 and a beta of 1.58.
Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI - Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 30th. The electronics maker reported $3.30 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.80 by $0.50. The company had revenue of $1.06 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $988.15 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.77% and a net margin of 9.43%. The business's quarterly revenue was up 17.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.62 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Acuity Brands will post 11.52 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Acuity Brands Announces Dividend
The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, July 15th were paid a dividend of $0.13 per share. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.29%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, July 14th. Acuity Brands's payout ratio is currently 5.01%.
Insider Transactions at Acuity Brands
In related news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 906 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $177.47, for a total value of $160,787.82. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 4,749 shares in the company, valued at $842,805.03. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 906 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $177.47, for a total value of $160,787.82. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now 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 available at this link. Also, Director Laura O'shaughnessy acquired 575 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 28th. The shares were bought at an average price of $174.54 per share, with a total value of $100,360.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 1,479 shares of the company's stock, valued at $258,144.66. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. 1.20% of the stock is owned by company insiders.