The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) Shares Bought by Douglas Lane & Associates LLC

Douglas Lane & Associates LLC lifted its stake in shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 0.9% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,541,203 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 32,122 shares during the quarter. Douglas Lane & Associates LLC’s holdings in AES were worth $45,575,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale increased its position in AES by 161.8% in the second quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 107,016 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $2,035,000 after buying an additional 66,145 shares during the period. Rock Point Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of AES by 34.6% in the 3rd quarter. Rock Point Advisors LLC now owns 760,775 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $15,261,000 after acquiring an additional 195,460 shares during the period. M&G PLC lifted its position in AES by 12.7% in the 3rd quarter. M&G PLC now owns 6,511,760 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $130,235,000 after purchasing an additional 732,457 shares during the last quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank boosted its stake in AES by 28.4% during the 3rd quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 257,368 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $5,163,000 after purchasing an additional 56,879 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in AES by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 6,694,239 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $134,286,000 after purchasing an additional 82,956 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on AES in a research note on Wednesday, September 11th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $20.00 price target for the company. Evercore ISI upgraded shares of AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Mizuho decreased their price objective on shares of AES from $24.00 to $16.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, November 21st. Susquehanna dropped their target price on AES from $24.00 to $21.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, November 5th. Finally, Barclays decreased their price target on AES from $23.00 to $17.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 13th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $19.30.

AES Price Performance

Shares of AES stock traded down $0.63 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $12.32. 10,701,279 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 10,572,622. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $13.47 and its 200-day moving average is $16.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21, a current ratio of 0.85 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The AES Co. has a 52 week low of $12.09 and a 52 week high of $22.21. The stock has a market cap of $8.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.71 and a beta of 1.00.

AES (NYSE:AES) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.60 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $3.29 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.46 billion. AES had a return on equity of 27.30% and a net margin of 8.34%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.60 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that The AES Co. will post 1.95 EPS for the current year.

AES Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Friday, January 31st will be given a $0.176 dividend. This represents a $0.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.71%. This is an increase from AES’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.17. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 31st. AES’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 48.61%.

AES Profile

The AES Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a diversified power generation and utility company in the United States and internationally. The company owns and/or operates power plants to generate and sell power to customers, such as utilities, industrial users, and other intermediaries; owns and/or operates utilities to generate or purchase, distribute, transmit, and sell electricity to end-user customers in the residential, commercial, industrial, and governmental sectors; and generates and sells electricity on the wholesale market.