Acuity Brands, Inc. (AYI) To Go Ex-Dividend on April 17th

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, March 27th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a dividend of 0.17 per share by the electronics maker on Thursday, May 1st. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.26%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 17th.

Acuity Brands has increased its dividend payment by an average of 4.9% per year over the last three years. Acuity Brands has a payout ratio of 3.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Acuity Brands to earn $17.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.68 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 3.9%.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 2.0 %

AYI opened at $262.44 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $301.88 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $303.67. 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 $8.12 billion, a PE ratio of 19.33, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. 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 (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.72 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Oppenheimer raised their price target on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on Acuity Brands from $336.00 to $290.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Morgan Stanley raised Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Robert W. Baird lowered their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $340.00 to $310.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average 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.