Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Lowered to Buy Rating by StockNews.com

StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note published on Tuesday morning.

AYI has been the topic of several other research reports. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley raised Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price target for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Oppenheimer upped their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Acuity Brands stock opened at $323.56 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. Acuity Brands has a 52 week low of $217.64 and a 52 week high of $345.30. The firm has a market cap of $10.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.83, a P/E/G ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.40. The business’s fifty day moving average is $316.93 and its two-hundred day moving average is $292.99.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 business had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.72 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts forecast that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd will be issued a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.21%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, February 3rd. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 5.01%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Acuity Brands

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. UMB Bank n.a. increased its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 517.6% in the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 105 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 88 shares in the last quarter. ORG Wealth Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth about $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth about $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter worth about $33,000. Finally, V Square Quantitative Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter worth about $35,000. 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.