Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Price Target Lowered to $275.00 at Wells Fargo & Company

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) had its target price lowered by Wells Fargo & Company from $290.00 to $275.00 in a research report report published on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. Wells Fargo & Company currently has an equal weight rating on the electronics maker’s stock.

AYI has been the topic of a number of other reports. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Robert W. Baird cut their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $310.00 to $295.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday. StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 1st. William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Oppenheimer raised their price target on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $324.60.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of AYI stock opened at $233.15 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $294.09 and its 200 day moving average is $303.75. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.17, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. Acuity Brands has a 12 month low of $217.64 and a 12 month high of $345.30. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.67 by $0.06. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The firm had revenue of $1.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.38 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.29%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 5.01%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Acuity Brands

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of AYI. ORG Wealth Partners LLC bought a new stake in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth approximately $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth approximately $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at $40,000. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at $42,000. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.