Here's How Much You'd Have If You Invested $1000 in Acuity Brands a Decade Ago
For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. Not only can it impact your investment portfolio, but it can also help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.
Another thing that can drive investing is the fear of missing out, or FOMO. This particularly applies to tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in Acuity Brands (AYI) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to AYI for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
Acuity Brands' Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at Acuity Brands' main business drivers.
Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, Acuity Brands, Inc. is the parent company of Acuity Brands Lighting, Inc. (“ABL”) and other subsidiaries. The company manufactures and distributes lighting fixtures and related components that comprise devices such as luminaries, lighting controls, and controllers for various building systems, power supplies, prismatic skylights, and drivers, as well as integrated systems designed to optimize energy efficiency and comfort for various indoor and outdoor applications.
The company intended to separate the lighting, lighting controls and components business and intelligent buildings business. In sync with this, during the third quarter of fiscal 2021, the company completed the realignment of its business operations and structured into two units: Acuity Brands Lighting and Lighting Controls or ABL (accounting for 94.9% of fiscal 2021 net sales) and Intelligent Spaces Group or ISG (5.1%).
Additionally, it has expanded its solutions portfolio, including software and services, that benefits economy in data analytics that enables the Internet of Things (“IoT”); supports the advancement of smart buildings, cities, and grid; and allows businesses to develop custom applications to scale their operations.
The portfolio of lighting solutions comprises lighting products utilizing fluorescent, light emitting diode (LED), organic LED (OLED), high intensity discharge, metal halide, and incandescent light sources to illuminate a number of applications.
Acuity Brands provides lighting solutions for commercial, institutional, industrial, infrastructure, and residential applications throughout North America and as well as Europe and Asia. The company has one reportable segment serving the North American and select international markets.
The company has a wide variety of brands that include Lithonia Lighting, Holophane, Peerless, Gotham, Mark Architectural Lighting, Winona Lighting, Juno, Indy, Aculux, Healthcare Lighting, Hydrel, American Electric Lighting, Antique Street Lamps, Sunoptics, eldoLED, Distech Controls, nLight, ROAM, Sensor Switch, Power Sentry, IOTA, and Atrius.
Bottom Line
Putting together a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of research, patience, and a little bit of risk. For Acuity Brands, if you bought shares a decade ago, you're likely feeling really good about your investment today.
A $1000 investment made in October 2012 would be worth $2,746.37, or a gain of 174.64%, as of October 24, 2022, according to our calculations. This return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.
Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 161.85% and gold's return of -6.50% over the same time frame.
Looking ahead, analysts are expecting more upside for AYI.
Acuity Brands’ shares have outperformed the industry in the past year. The trend is likely to continue, backed by strong fourth-quarter and fiscal 2022 results. The top and bottom lines beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate and increased on a year-over-year basis. Higher sales from both the segments, along with price increases and product and productivity improvements, drove the results. Also, a diversified portfolio of innovative lighting control solutions and energy-efficient luminaries adds to the positives. However, gross and adjusted operating margins contracted 50 basis points (bps) each in the fiscal fourth quarter due to higher material, labor and freight costs. For fiscal 2023, net sales are expected to be within $4.1-$4.3 billion. Adjusted earnings are likely to be in the range of $13-$14.50 per share.
Over the past four weeks, shares have rallied 10.07%, and there have been 4 higher earnings estimate revisions in the past two months for fiscal 2022 compared to none lower. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
Acuity Brands Inc (AYI) : Free Stock Analysis Report
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Zacks Investment Research
