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

Shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYIGet Free Report) have earned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the four ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $193.80.

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. StockNews.com raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $200.00 to $236.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 19th.

Read Our Latest Report on Acuity Brands

Insider Buying and Selling at Acuity Brands

In other Acuity Brands news, SVP Dianne S. Mills sold 6,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $225.11, for a total transaction of $1,350,660.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,554 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,925,590.94. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, SVP Dianne S. Mills sold 6,000 shares of Acuity Brands stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $225.11, for a total value of $1,350,660.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,554 shares in the company, valued at $1,925,590.94. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 1,900 shares of Acuity Brands stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $226.01, for a total transaction of $429,419.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 8,611 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,946,172.11. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.50% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Acuity Brands

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Aurora Investment Counsel boosted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.8% in the third quarter. Aurora Investment Counsel now owns 5,938 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,011,000 after buying an additional 49 shares during the last quarter. Verdence Capital Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 3.1% during the fourth quarter. Verdence Capital Advisors LLC now owns 1,847 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $378,000 after purchasing an additional 55 shares in the last quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. lifted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. now owns 10,903 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $2,233,000 after purchasing an additional 55 shares in the last quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 77.3% during the fourth quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 133 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SouthState Corp lifted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 3.3% during the third quarter. SouthState Corp now owns 1,854 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $316,000 after purchasing an additional 60 shares in the last quarter. 95.58% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of AYI opened at $257.46 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.02, a PEG ratio of 1.86 and a beta of 1.49. The company has a quick ratio of 1.85, a current ratio of 2.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $238.41 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $198.34. Acuity Brands has a twelve month low of $149.30 and a twelve month high of $264.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYIGet Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, January 9th. The electronics maker reported $3.72 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.23 by $0.49. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 9.56% and a return on equity of 21.43%. The firm had revenue of $934.70 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $935.14 million. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.04 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 6.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands will post 13.73 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 5th were paid a dividend of $0.15 per share. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.23%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 2nd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 5.13%.

About Acuity Brands

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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.

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