Brokerages Set Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Target Price at $317.60

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the six analysts that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and three have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price target among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $317.60.

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on AYI. StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, April 4th. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley set a $335.00 price target on shares of Acuity Brands in a research report on Friday, April 4th. Robert W. Baird cut their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $310.00 to $295.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 4th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on Acuity Brands from $290.00 to $275.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, April 4th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter valued at about $3,849,000. Merit Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $232,000. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC boosted its stake in Acuity Brands by 213.4% during the 3rd quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 5,040 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,388,000 after purchasing an additional 3,432 shares during the last quarter. Smith Group Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at about $19,703,000. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp increased its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 12.3% in the third quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 7,642 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $2,105,000 after purchasing an additional 835 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 0.2 %

Shares of AYI opened at $229.01 on Friday. Acuity Brands has a 12-month low of $216.81 and a 12-month high of $345.30. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $272.08 and a 200-day moving average price of $300.28. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.86, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.43. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.67 by $0.06. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The business had revenue of $1.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.38 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be issued a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.30%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 17th. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is 5.16%.

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.