Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Price Target Cut to $310.00 by Analysts at Robert W. Baird

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) had its price objective lowered by Robert W. Baird from $340.00 to $310.00 in a report published on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. Robert W. Baird currently has a neutral rating on the electronics maker’s stock.

AYI has been the topic of several other reports. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. Oppenheimer upped their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $339.80.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of Acuity Brands stock opened at $268.39 on Thursday. 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 has a 52-week low of $217.64 and a 52-week high of $345.30. The company has a fifty day moving average of $303.24 and a 200-day moving average of $303.57. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The company’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.72 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.25%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is 5.01%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Acuity Brands

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of AYI. Durable Capital Partners LP raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 158.9% in the 4th quarter. Durable Capital Partners LP now owns 1,088,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $317,977,000 after acquiring an additional 668,048 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth $110,236,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its stake in Acuity Brands by 241.8% in the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 216,007 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $63,102,000 after purchasing an additional 152,807 shares during the period. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec raised its holdings in Acuity Brands by 1,256.1% in the fourth quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 161,183 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $47,086,000 after purchasing an additional 149,297 shares in the last quarter. Finally, World Investment Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands during the third quarter valued at $31,026,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

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.