Acuity Brands
Acuity Brands, Inc. is a lighting and building management firm headquartered in Atlanta, GA., with operations throughout North America and in Europe and Asia. It currently has about 13,000 employees and recorded net sales of $3.7 billion for fiscal year 2018. In terms of market share, Acuity Brands is the largest lighting manufacturer in North America.
History
From Linen to LightingThe roots of Acuity Brands date back to the early 20th century and to what was originally a linen supply company. Isadore M. Weinstein, who was born in New York City and raised in Cleveland, founded the Atlanta Linen Supply company in 1919, after serving in World War I. Branches were opened in other locations in the South in the 1920s, and the name changed to Southern Linen Service Corporation.
It went public in 1928 as National Linen Service Corporation and continued to grow, becoming a dominant player in its field by the mid-20th century. Due to antitrust concerns, the company began to diversify in the 1960s, adding new business lines and changing its name to National Service Industries.
In 1969 it acquired Lithonia Lighting Inc., a light fixture manufacturer formed in Georgia in 1946. This laid the groundwork for a new division at NSI and was an important piece of what would later become Acuity Brands. Various divisions came and went, but the lighting division continued to grow; by the early 1990s it was providing the largest share of the company’s revenues. Additional lighting companies were acquired by NSI. The largest of those acquisitions occurred in 1999, when Ohio-based Holophane Corporation, a large outdoor and industrial lighting manufacturer, was purchased.
Acuity Brands Formed
In 2001, National Service Industries announced it would combine its two largest divisions, lighting and specialty chemicals, and spin off that combined entity as a separate, publicly traded company. In November 2001, the spinoff was completed. The new company was named Acuity Brands, Inc. James S. Balloun, who had led National Services Industries since the mid-1990s, moved with the spinoff to serve as the president, CEO and chairman of the board. He retired in September 2004 and was replaced by Vernon J. Nagel, who had joined thefirm as executive vice president and chief financial officer in December 2001.
In 2007, the company separated its lighting and chemicals businesses by spinning off Acuity Specialty Products into a spinoff named Zep, Inc. This included the Zep, Enforcer and Selig specialty chemical brands. The separation left Acuity Brands, Inc. as the holding company for Acuity Brands Lighting.
Products
The firm's products include luminaires, lighting controls, building system controllers, prismatic skylights, drivers, power supplies and integrated systems for indoor and outdoor applications in commercial, industrial, institutional, infrastructure and residential spaces. TThey include recessed, surface, suspended, downlight, decorative, track and emergency indoor luminaires as well as outdoor lighting for street and roadway, parking, flood, landscape, site, area and underwater applications. It also provides digital networked lighting, building management and IoT.modular wiring, LED drivers, photo controls, occupancy sensors, dimming panels, relay panels, integrated lighting control systems, and products and services related to networked technology, building automation and building analytics.
The firm markets its products and services under a variety of brand names.
Acquisitions
The firm's acquisitions have focused on technology: LED lighting, controls, intelligent drivers, connected lighting, indoor location services, building management and building analytics.| Acquisition date | Company | Country |
| Lighting Control & Design | US | |
| Sensor Switch, Inc. | US | |
| Renaissance Lighting | US | |
| Winona Lighting | US | |
| Sunoptics | US | |
| Healthcare Lighting | US | |
| Horizon Control | US | |
| Pathway Connectivity, Inc. | US | |
| Adura Technologies | US | |
| eldoLAB Holding BV | US | |
| ByteLight, Inc. | US | |
| Distech Controls | Canada | |
| Juno Lighting Group | US | |
| Geometri | US | |
| DGLogik | US | |
| Lucid Design Group, Inc. | US | |
| May 2018 | IOTA Engineering | US |
| June 2019 | WhiteOptics | US |
| September 2019 | The Luminaires Group | US |
| November 2019 | LocusLabs, Inc. | US |