Acuity Brands

To Our Stakeholders:

2015 was another year of record financial performance for Acuity Brands as we reported all-time highs for net sales, operating profit, net income, diluted earnings per share, and cash flow from operations.

During the past year, we continued to successfully execute our strategy to extend our leadership position in the North American lighting solutions market by providing our customers with differentiated value from our industry-leading portfolio of innovative products and solutions along with superior service.

On the strategic front, we accomplished a number of items in fiscal 2015. We extended our leadership position in North America through the continued expansion of our product portfolio of innovative and energy-efficient luminaires and lighting control solutions. As a result, we generated net sales that meaningfully exceeded the growth rate of our addressable market. We continued with investments to enhance our production, distribution, and customer service and support capabilities, and further accelerated the deployment of our lean business processes, which improved our on-time delivery and company-wide productivity.

Additionally, we continued to execute our tiered solutions strategy by expanding our lighting solutions portfolio for both indoor and outdoor applications, completing the acquisition of Distech Controls, Inc. on September 1, 2015, and establishing strategic partnerships, all in an effort to capitalize on the evolving and growing market for intelligent networked systems that collect and exchange data to increase efficiency as well as provide a host of other economic benefits resulting from data analytics. The acquisition of Distech Controls is part of the Company’s strategy to offer a single digital ecosystem that will allow for the true end-to-end optimization of all aspects of a building, including a quality visual environment, seamless operation, energy efficiency, operational cost reductions, and increased digital functionality. The transition to solid-state lighting provides the opportunity for lighting to be integrated with other building automation systems to create an optimal platform for enabling the Internet of Things, which will support the advancement of smart buildings, smart cities, and the smart grid.

This is an extraordinary time to be in the lighting and building automation industries, particularly for a company of the caliber of Acuity Brands. Rapid advancements in technology, along with the need for greater energy efficiency, changes in public policy, and demand for environmental sustainability, continue to drive profound changes in our industry creating an exciting opportunity. Acuity Brands is capitalizing on these profound changes to provide lighting solutions that are efficient, elegant, and sophisticated, while at the same time simple to install, maintain, and use. We are at the forefront of transforming the lighting and building automation industries. Our experience, knowledge, and skill as lighting experts allow us to deliver superior lighting solutions for virtually any application, a promise best captured in our tag line: “Expanding the Boundaries of Lighting™.”

Our Future:Excellence, Innovation, Growth

As we enter 2016, our mission is to continue to build on our rich legacy of excellence, innovation, and growth. Our passion and intense focus continue to be centered on creating lighting and building automation solutions that deliver superior quality, energy efficiency and performance. We know that superior quality of light enhances how we live and interact, whether it is increasing students’ learning ability in schools, improving worker productivity and comfort in offices and industrial facilities, enhancing the shopping experience in retail establishments, or accelerating patient healing in hospitals. The possibilities of what can be achieved by the use of intelligent lighting solutions are still being explored. Our associates are rapidly exploiting new technologies and aggressively expanding our industry-leading portfolio by developing intelligent lighting and building automation solutions that represent significant advancements over traditional technologies and easily network with other systems, improving energy efficiency, health & safety, and productivity.

On October 29, 2015, we announced that Acuity Brands entered into an agreement to acquire all of the equity interests of Juno Lighting LLC (Juno Lighting Group), a leading provider of downlighting and track lighting fixtures for both residential and commercial applications, with current annual revenues of approximately $250 million. Juno Lighting Group is a widely-recognized and well-respected brand in the industry and its product offering is highly complementary, with minimal overlap, to our industry-leading portfolio. We are very excited about this strategic opportunity that will allow us to provide customers with an enhanced and broader set of lighting solutions. We believe the combination of our dynamic businesses and strong leadership teams will provide growth opportunities with key customer sets and benefit our primary sales channel partners in their respective markets. We expect this acquisition will be completed in late calendar 2015 and accretive to our fiscal 2016 earnings, while also providing a foundation to enhance the longer-term financial performance of Acuity Brands.

As the market leader in North America, we believe our deep expertise in technology, optics and thermal management, our understanding of the art and science of lighting, and our ability to provide tailored lighting and building automation solutions for numerous applications have positioned the company to excel. Our key strategies and tactical focus have remained consistent over the last few years. We expect to continue to execute our profitable growth strategy by focusing on the three mission-critical areas of operational excellence that we refer to as the 3 Cs.