Acuity Brands, Inc. (AYI) To Go Ex-Dividend on October 18th

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, September 26th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 18th will be paid a dividend of 0.15 per share by the electronics maker on Friday, November 1st. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.22%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 18th.

Acuity Brands has a payout ratio of 3.6% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Acuity Brands to earn $15.35 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 3.9%.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Acuity Brands stock opened at $270.08 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $8.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.96, a P/E/G ratio of 1.77 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a quick ratio of 2.15, a current ratio of 2.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $248.15 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $253.00. Acuity Brands has a 52 week low of $156.84 and a 52 week high of $275.63.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its earnings results on Thursday, June 27th. The electronics maker reported $4.15 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.82 by $0.33. The company had revenue of $968.10 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $996.52 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 20.97% and a net margin of 10.12%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $3.50 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that Acuity Brands will post 14.26 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AYI has been the subject of a number of research reports. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 27th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $260.00 to $289.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on Acuity Brands from $286.00 to $280.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 18th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $286.25.

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.