Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Posts Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.06 EPS

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The electronics maker reported $3.73 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.67 by $0.06, RTT News reports. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The firm had revenue of $1.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.38 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:AYI opened at $266.79 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Acuity Brands has a 52 week low of $217.64 and a 52 week high of $345.30. The company has a market cap of $8.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.65, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $297.70 and a 200 day moving average price of $304.27.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.25%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 5.01%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently issued reports on AYI shares. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. StockNews.com lowered Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 1st. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on Acuity Brands from $336.00 to $290.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 28th. Finally, Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on Acuity Brands from $340.00 to $310.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 27th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $330.60.

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.