Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Estimates By $0.10 EPS

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) issued its earnings results on Wednesday. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10, RTT News reports. The business 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 20.49% and a net margin of 11.00%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.72 earnings per share.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 0.9 %

Acuity Brands stock opened at $304.72 on Wednesday. Acuity Brands has a fifty-two week low of $204.34 and a fifty-two week high of $337.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a quick ratio of 2.16 and a current ratio of 2.72. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $314.79 and its 200 day simple moving average is $279.68. The stock has a market cap of $9.40 billion, a PE ratio of 22.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.40.

Insider Buying and Selling at Acuity Brands

In related news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total transaction of $1,561,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,438 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,573,590. This trade represents a 37.76 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Company insiders own 2.80% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. StockNews.com raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on Acuity Brands from $330.00 to $320.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on Acuity Brands from $315.00 to $370.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley assumed coverage on Acuity Brands in a report on Monday. They issued an “equal weight” rating and a $304.00 target price on the stock. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $323.00.

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.