Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Raises Dividend to $0.17 Per Share

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 23rd,RTT News reports. Investors 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.20%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 3rd. This is an increase 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. Equities research 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

AYI stock opened at $335.02 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $10.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.67, a PEG ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands has a one year low of $217.64 and a one year high of $345.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $315.91 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $286.03.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its 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 firm had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The firm’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.72 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Acuity Brands will post 15.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The shares were 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 owns 8,438 shares in the company, valued at $2,573,590. This trade represents a 37.76 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 2.80% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on AYI. StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 10th. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Morgan Stanley raised Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target 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.