Acuity Brands, Inc. (AYI) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.17 on February 14th

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) announced 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%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 3rd. 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 3.5% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Acuity Brands to earn $16.99 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.68 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 4.0%.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of AYI opened at $332.38 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $316.93 and a 200-day moving average of $289.16. 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 current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. The company has a market cap of $10.29 billion, a PE ratio of 24.48, a P/E/G ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.40.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.72 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts predict that Acuity Brands will post 15.72 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AYI has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Oppenheimer raised their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded 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. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

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.