Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.17

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, March 27th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a dividend of 0.17 per share by the electronics maker on Thursday, May 1st. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.25%.

Acuity Brands has raised its dividend by an average of 4.9% per year over the last three years. Acuity Brands has a payout ratio of 3.5% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Acuity Brands to earn $17.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.68 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 3.9%.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 1.1 %

NYSE:AYI traded down $2.89 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $268.39. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 289,867 shares, compared to its average volume of 267,110. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. 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 fifty day moving average of $304.50 and a 200-day moving average of $303.82. Acuity Brands has a 52-week low of $217.64 and a 52-week high of $345.30.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on Acuity Brands from $340.00 to $310.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Oppenheimer raised their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $339.80.

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.