Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Releases Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.10 EPS

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10, RTT News reports. The company had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.00% and a return on equity of 20.49%. Acuity Brands’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.72 earnings per share.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $312.99 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $9.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands has a twelve month low of $214.32 and a twelve month high of $337.99. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $315.26 and a 200-day simple moving average of $280.14. The company has a current ratio of 2.72, a quick ratio of 2.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21.

Insider Activity

In related news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total value of $1,561,600.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 8,438 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,573,590. This trade represents a 37.76 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 2.80% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday. Robert W. Baird upped their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $328.20.

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.