Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) have been given a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the six research firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $341.40.

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on AYI shares. Morgan Stanley raised Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. 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 research report on Thursday, January 9th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th. Finally, Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of AYI stock opened at $299.19 on Friday. Acuity Brands has a 52-week low of $217.64 and a 52-week high of $345.30. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The stock has a market cap of $9.26 billion, a PE ratio of 22.03, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $316.92 and a 200-day simple moving average of $299.65.

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, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.72 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a $0.17 dividend. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.23%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 5.01%.

Institutional Trading of Acuity Brands

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in AYI. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at $3,849,000. Hancock Whitney Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 42.0% in 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 during the last quarter. Aigen Investment Management LP acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at about $484,000. Landscape Capital Management L.L.C. acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at about $813,000. Finally, Entropy Technologies LP purchased a new position in Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $462,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

About Acuity Brands

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.