Analysts Set The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) PT at $22.43

Shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the seven brokerages that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and four have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $22.29.

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on AES shares. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $25.00 price objective on shares of AES in a research note on Monday, March 25th. UBS Group reduced their target price on AES from $20.00 to $19.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 3rd. Barclays reduced their target price on AES from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, March 14th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $22.00 price objective on shares of AES in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Argus reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $25.00 price objective on shares of AES in a report on Tuesday, March 26th.

AES Price Performance

NYSE AES opened at $18.26 on Friday. AES has a twelve month low of $11.43 and a twelve month high of $25.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.42, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a current ratio of 0.68. The stock has a market capitalization of $12.98 billion, a PE ratio of 55.34 and a beta of 1.08. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $16.46 and a 200 day simple moving average of $16.60.

AES (NYSE:AES) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 27th. The utilities provider reported $0.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.67 by $0.06. AES had a return on equity of 38.76% and a net margin of 2.12%. The firm had revenue of $2.97 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.36 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.49 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 3.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that AES will post 1.91 EPS for the current year.

AES Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.1725 per share. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 30th. AES’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 209.10%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On AES

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in AES. Capital World Investors increased its holdings in AES by 76.9% during the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 71,348,566 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,373,460,000 after purchasing an additional 31,009,718 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its holdings in shares of AES by 38.6% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 36,821,650 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $559,689,000 after acquiring an additional 10,256,781 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of AES by 70.8% in the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,441,980 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $124,008,000 after acquiring an additional 2,670,001 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors grew its holdings in shares of AES by 3.8% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 69,671,801 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,341,277,000 after acquiring an additional 2,537,128 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Marshall Wace LLP grew its holdings in shares of AES by 5,703.5% in the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 2,426,912 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $50,310,000 after acquiring an additional 2,385,094 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

About AES

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.