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

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

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Acuity Brands

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of AYI. Durable Capital Partners LP lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 158.9% during the 4th quarter. Durable Capital Partners LP now owns 1,088,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $317,977,000 after purchasing an additional 668,048 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter worth $110,236,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 241.8% during the 4th quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 216,007 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $63,102,000 after purchasing an additional 152,807 shares during the last quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 1,256.1% during the 4th quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 161,183 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $47,086,000 after purchasing an additional 149,297 shares during the last quarter. Finally, World Investment Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter worth $31,026,000. 98.21% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 1.2 %

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $264.17 on Tuesday. Acuity Brands has a 1 year low of $217.64 and a 1 year high of $345.30. 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 company has a 50 day simple moving average of $307.14 and a 200-day simple moving average of $303.18. The company has a market capitalization of $8.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.45, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41.

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. 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 the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.72 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts predict that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.26%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is 5.01%.

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.