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. Shareholders 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 yield of 0.29%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th.

Acuity Brands has raised its dividend payment by an average of 4.9% per year over the last three years. Acuity Brands has a payout ratio of 3.6% meaning 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 Price Performance

AYI opened at $238.12 on Tuesday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $279.53 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $302.04. Acuity Brands has a 52 week low of $216.81 and a 52 week high of $345.30. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.36 billion, a PE ratio of 17.53, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.67 by $0.06. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The company had revenue of $1.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.03 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.38 EPS. Acuity Brands’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

AYI has been the subject of several analyst reports. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. StockNews.com lowered Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, April 4th. Morgan Stanley set a $335.00 target price on Acuity Brands in a report on Friday, April 4th. 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. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $317.60.

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.