Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Receives $341.40 Average Target Price from Brokerages

Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the six brokerages that are covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and three have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $341.40.

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, March 1st. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Oppenheimer lifted their price target on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 4.2 %

Shares of NYSE:AYI opened at $275.18 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. The stock has a market cap of $8.52 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.26, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. Acuity Brands has a 1-year low of $217.64 and a 1-year high of $345.30. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $306.52 and a 200 day moving average price of $303.82.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The business had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.72 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.25%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 5.01%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the third quarter valued at about $3,849,000. Hancock Whitney Corp grew its stake in Acuity Brands by 42.0% during the 3rd quarter. Hancock Whitney Corp now owns 6,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,784,000 after purchasing an additional 1,917 shares in the last quarter. Landscape Capital Management L.L.C. acquired a new stake in Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $813,000. Merit Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter worth approximately $232,000. Finally, Integrated Investment Consultants LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $538,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Acuity Brands Company Profile

Acuity Brands, Inc provides lighting, lighting controls, building management system, location-aware applications in the United States and internationally. The company operates in 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 A-Light, Aculux, American Electric Lighting, Cyclone, Dark to Light, eldoLED, Eureka, Gotham, Healthcare Lighting, Holophane, Hydrel, Indy, IOTA, Juno, Lithonia Lighting, Luminaire LED, Luminis, Mark Architectural Lighting, nLight, OPTOTRONIC, Peerless, RELOCWiring Solutions, and Sensor Switch.