Blair William & Co. IL Purchases New Shares in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Blair William & Co. IL acquired a new position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) in the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 24,692 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $434,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Capital World Investors grew its holdings in shares of AES by 76.9% in the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 71,348,566 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,373,460,000 after acquiring an additional 31,009,718 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors grew its stake in AES by 11.4% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 77,641,395 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,392,110,000 after purchasing an additional 7,969,594 shares during the period. M&G Plc purchased a new stake in shares of AES during the 1st quarter valued at $123,272,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of AES by 70.8% during the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,441,980 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $124,008,000 after purchasing an additional 2,670,001 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in AES by 2.2% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,725,232 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,608,773,000 after buying an additional 1,929,523 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

AES Price Performance

AES stock opened at $19.63 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63, a current ratio of 0.97 and a quick ratio of 0.91. The AES Co. has a one year low of $11.43 and a one year high of $22.21. The firm has a market capitalization of $13.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.26 and a beta of 1.07. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $17.58 and a 200-day moving average price of $18.10.

AES (NYSE:AES) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.38 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by $0.02. AES had a return on equity of 32.74% and a net margin of 6.07%. The business had revenue of $2.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.22 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.21 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that The AES Co. will post 1.9 EPS for the current year.

AES Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 1st were issued a $0.1725 dividend. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.52%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 1st. AES’s payout ratio is 95.83%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have commented on AES shares. Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on shares of AES in a research report on Wednesday, September 11th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $20.00 price objective on the stock. Barclays dropped their price objective on AES from $23.00 to $22.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, July 22nd. Finally, Evercore ISI raised AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, AES has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $21.50.

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.