Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Price Target Lowered to $310.00 at Robert W. Baird

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) had its target price lowered by Robert W. Baird from $340.00 to $310.00 in a report published on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a neutral rating on the electronics maker’s stock.

AYI has been the topic of a number of other reports. Oppenheimer upped their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 1st. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $330.60.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:AYI opened at $262.44 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $301.88 and a 200 day moving average of $304.04. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The stock has a market cap of $8.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.33, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. Acuity Brands has a 12 month low of $217.64 and a 12 month high of $345.30.

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

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.26%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is currently 5.01%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Acuity Brands

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at about $3,849,000. Merit Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at about $232,000. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC raised its position in Acuity Brands by 213.4% during the 3rd quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 5,040 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,388,000 after purchasing an additional 3,432 shares during the last quarter. Smith Group Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth approximately $19,703,000. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 12.3% in the 3rd quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 7,642 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $2,105,000 after buying an additional 835 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.