KBC Group NV Sells 4,725 Shares of The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES)

KBC Group NV trimmed its position in The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES) by 15.3% in the first quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 26,149 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 4,725 shares during the period. KBC Group NV’s holdings in AES were worth $325,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AES. Community Trust & Investment Co. boosted its position in shares of AES by 37.4% in the 1st quarter. Community Trust & Investment Co. now owns 291,418 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $3,619,000 after purchasing an additional 79,355 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in AES by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 6,879,259 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $88,536,000 after buying an additional 185,020 shares during the last quarter. Perigon Wealth Management LLC grew its position in shares of AES by 141.0% during the 1st quarter. Perigon Wealth Management LLC now owns 66,841 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $830,000 after buying an additional 39,107 shares during the period. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of AES by 23.2% in the 1st quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 689,534 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $8,564,000 after acquiring an additional 129,782 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. bought a new position in AES during the 4th quarter worth approximately $4,936,000. 93.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have commented on AES. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on shares of AES from $16.00 to $14.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 24th. Jefferies Financial Group downgraded AES from a “hold” rating to an “underperform” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $10.00 to $9.00 in a research note on Tuesday, May 20th. Citigroup decreased their target price on AES from $23.00 to $14.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 9th. Argus reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of AES in a research report on Tuesday, May 27th. Finally, HSBC decreased their price objective on AES from $15.00 to $14.00 in a research report on Monday, May 5th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $24.22.

AES Trading Up 3.0%

NYSE:AES opened at $11.47 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $8.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.23, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 0.95. The AES Corporation has a twelve month low of $9.46 and a twelve month high of $20.30. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $10.76 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $11.23. The company has a quick ratio of 0.78, a current ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.42.

AES (NYSE:AES) last released its earnings results on Thursday, May 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.27 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.37 by ($0.10). AES had a net margin of 10.67% and a return on equity of 18.06%. The company had revenue of $2.93 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.13 billion. AES’s revenue was down 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.60 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that The AES Corporation will post 1.93 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.