Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.17

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 23rd,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be paid a dividend of 0.17 per share by the electronics maker on Friday, February 14th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.20%. This is a boost 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 payout ratio of 3.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. 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 Performance

NYSE:AYI opened at $337.44 on Friday. Acuity Brands has a twelve month low of $217.64 and a twelve month high of $340.74. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $315.76 and its 200 day simple moving average is $285.67. The firm has a market capitalization of $10.45 billion, a PE ratio of 24.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.40.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.72 EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands will post 15.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Acuity Brands

In other news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total value of $1,561,600.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,438 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,573,590. This represents a 37.76 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 2.80% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on AYI. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 10th. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $341.40.

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.