Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Given New $295.00 Price Target at Robert W. Baird

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) had its target price cut by Robert W. Baird from $310.00 to $295.00 in a research report sent to investors on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have a neutral rating on the electronics maker’s stock.

Other research analysts also recently issued reports about the company. 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 report on Friday, March 28th. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 1st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $324.60.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

AYI opened at $233.15 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.17, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. Acuity Brands has a fifty-two week low of $217.64 and a fifty-two week high of $345.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. The company has a fifty day moving average of $294.09 and a 200 day moving average of $303.75.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.67 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $1.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.38 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be paid a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.29%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is currently 5.01%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. ORG Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the third quarter valued at $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth about $40,000. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth about $42,000. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

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.