Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) currently trades at $205.36 which is about -3.14% lower than the 52-week high of $280.89. The trading volume at ready counter moved to 2.34M shares as compared to 852,011.00 shares average traded volume. The stock failed to get pushed above the $212.00 barrier, the intraday high, after opening at $208.52. Analysts have a consensus target price of $242.45 in the 12-month period. Its market capitalization has now reached to $8.77B.
Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) was dropped to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays. It has earned a consensus Strong buy rating, according to Zacks Investment Research. 1 analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, 1 has assigned a hold rating, Zero says it’s a buy and 10 have assigned a strong buy rating to the company.
Acuity Brands, Inc. (AYI) on January 9, 2017 announced record first quarter net sales, net income, and diluted earnings per share (“EPS”). Fiscal 2017 first quarter net sales of $851.2 million increased $114.6 million, or 16 percent, compared with the year-ago period. Operating profit for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 was $126.6 million, an increase of $14.2 million, or 13 percent, over the year-ago period. Net income for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 was $81.7 million, an increase of 19 percent compared with the prior-year period. Fiscal 2017 first quarter diluted EPS of $1.86 increased almost 19 percent compared with $1.57 for the year-ago period.
Adjusted diluted EPS for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 increased 13 percent to $2.00 compared with adjusted diluted EPS of $1.77 for the year-ago period. Adjusted operating profit for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 increased $17.3 million, or 14 percent, to $143.2 million, or 16.8 percent of net sales, compared with the year-ago period adjusted operating profit of $125.9 million, or 17.1 percent of net sales. Adjusted results exclude the impact of amortization expense for acquired intangible assets, share-based payment expense, acquisition-related items (including acquired profit in inventory and professional fees), special charges for streamlining activities, manufacturing inefficiencies related to the closing of a facility, and a gain on the sale of an investment in an unconsolidated affiliate. Management believes these items impacted the comparability of the Company’s results and that adjusted financial measures enhance the reader’s overall understanding of the Company’s current financial performance by making results comparable between periods. A reconciliation of adjusted financial measures to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measure is provided in the tables at the end of this release.
