Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Estimates By $0.10 EPS

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10, RTT News reports. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.00% and a return on equity of 20.49%. The business had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $3.72 EPS. Acuity Brands’s revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 3.0 %

AYI opened at $312.99 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.16, a current ratio of 2.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21. Acuity Brands has a twelve month low of $214.32 and a twelve month high of $337.99. The company has a market cap of $9.66 billion, a PE ratio of 23.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $315.01 and a 200 day moving average price of $279.91.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on AYI. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $330.00 to $320.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday. Oppenheimer upped their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $315.00 to $370.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on shares of Acuity Brands in a research note on Monday. They issued an “equal weight” rating and a $304.00 target price on the stock. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $323.00.

Insider Transactions at Acuity Brands

In other news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total transaction of $1,561,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,438 shares in the company, valued at $2,573,590. This trade represents a 37.76 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 2.80% of the company’s stock.

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.