Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Hits New 12-Month High on Analyst Upgrade

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)’s stock price hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Wednesday after Robert W. Baird raised their price target on the stock from $236.00 to $286.00. Robert W. Baird currently has a neutral rating on the stock. Acuity Brands traded as high as $270.95 and last traded at $269.56, with a volume of 12727 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $267.84.

AYI has been the topic of a number of other research reports. StockNews.com raised Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on Acuity Brands from $200.00 to $236.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 19th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $215.00.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Dianne S. Mills sold 6,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $225.11, for a total transaction of $1,350,660.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,554 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,925,590.94. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available 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 stock was sold at an average price of $225.11, for a total value of $1,350,660.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,554 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,925,590.94. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 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 value of $429,419.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 8,611 shares in the company, valued at $1,946,172.11. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 1.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. FMR LLC lifted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,365,821 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $573,233,000 after purchasing an additional 17,459 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 1.9% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,313,389 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $627,225,000 after buying an additional 60,541 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 0.9% during the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 2,982,396 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $564,568,000 after buying an additional 25,598 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 19.3% during the first quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,208,990 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $228,862,000 after buying an additional 195,515 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 620.3% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 1,197,721 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $198,355,000 after buying an additional 1,031,432 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 0.4 %

The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $247.46 and a 200-day simple moving average of $205.56. The firm has a market cap of $8.28 billion, a PE ratio of 22.99, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 2.45 and a quick ratio of 1.85.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 9th. The electronics maker reported $3.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.23 by $0.49. The business had revenue of $934.70 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $935.14 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 21.43% and a net margin of 9.56%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 6.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.04 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 13.72 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 5th were issued a $0.15 dividend. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 2nd. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.22%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 5.13%.

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.