Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Announces Dividend Increase – $0.17 Per Share

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 23rd,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.17 per share by the electronics maker on Friday, February 14th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.20%. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15.

Acuity Brands has increased its dividend by an average of 4.9% per year over the last three years. Acuity Brands has a dividend payout ratio of 3.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Acuity Brands to earn $16.97 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 3.5%.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 0.2 %

Shares of NYSE AYI traded up $0.59 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $337.44. 253,427 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 405,367. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $315.76 and a 200 day simple moving average of $285.67. The stock has a market cap of $10.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.85, a PEG ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands has a 1-year low of $217.64 and a 1-year high of $340.74.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its 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. The company had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. Acuity Brands’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.72 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that Acuity Brands will post 15.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on AYI shares. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 10th. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Oppenheimer raised their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated 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 completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 8,438 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,573,590. The trade was a 37.76 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Insiders own 2.80% of the company’s stock.

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.