Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.15

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, June 26th, NASDAQ reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 18th will be paid a dividend of 0.15 per share by the electronics maker on Thursday, August 1st. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.25%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 18th.

Acuity Brands has a payout ratio of 3.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Acuity Brands to earn $15.80 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 3.8%.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $242.56 on Friday. Acuity Brands has a 1-year low of $154.72 and a 1-year high of $272.74. The business has a 50-day moving average of $254.57 and a 200-day moving average of $243.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 2.59 and a quick ratio of 1.96. The company has a market capitalization of $7.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.28, a PEG ratio of 1.68 and a beta of 1.44.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.08 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.85 by $0.23. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 21.22% and a net margin of 9.81%. The company had revenue of $905.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $897.01 million. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands will post 14.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Acuity Brands

In other news, Director Maya Leibman acquired 200 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, April 25th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $248.91 per share, for a total transaction of $49,782.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $49,782. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other Acuity Brands news, CFO Karen J. Holcom sold 7,745 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, April 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $262.24, for a total transaction of $2,031,048.80. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 20,287 shares in the company, valued at $5,320,062.88. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, Director Maya Leibman acquired 200 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, April 25th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $248.91 per share, for a total transaction of $49,782.00. Following the purchase, the director now directly owns 200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $49,782. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. 1.50% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on AYI shares. Oppenheimer upped their target price on Acuity Brands from $250.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 4th. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded Acuity Brands from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $295.00 to $260.00 in a report on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on Acuity Brands from $227.00 to $261.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, April 4th. StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on Acuity Brands from $286.00 to $280.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, June 18th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $279.00.

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.