Korea Investment CORP Reduces Holdings in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Korea Investment CORP reduced its stake in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 17.0% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 716,566 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 146,939 shares during the period. Korea Investment CORP’s holdings in AES were worth $9,222,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of AES. State Street Corp raised its holdings in AES by 18.2% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 38,651,752 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $775,354,000 after buying an additional 5,960,546 shares during the last quarter. Sound Shore Management Inc. CT purchased a new position in shares of AES in the fourth quarter valued at about $69,083,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in shares of AES during the fourth quarter valued at about $33,964,000. Two Sigma Advisers LP boosted its holdings in shares of AES by 30.3% during the third quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 3,838,500 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $77,000,000 after purchasing an additional 892,500 shares during the period. Finally, HighTower Advisors LLC increased its holdings in AES by 53.0% during the 3rd quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 1,596,850 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $32,031,000 after purchasing an additional 553,311 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

AES Trading Up 0.3 %

NYSE:AES opened at $12.45 on Tuesday. The AES Co. has a one year low of $9.88 and a one year high of $22.21. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $11.37 and its 200 day simple moving average is $13.77. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.86 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.64, a PEG ratio of 0.82 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21, a current ratio of 0.85 and a quick ratio of 0.80.

AES (NYSE:AES) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.20. AES had a return on equity of 27.30% and a net margin of 8.34%. The company had revenue of $2.96 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.07 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.73 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that The AES Co. will post 1.93 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AES Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 1st will be paid a $0.176 dividend. This represents a $0.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.65%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 1st. AES’s payout ratio is 29.54%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on AES shares. Susquehanna dropped their price objective on AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set a “positive” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 5th. Bank of America upgraded shares of AES from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $11.00 to $13.00 in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Hsbc Global Res upgraded shares of AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Seaport Res Ptn lowered shares of AES from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Monday, March 3rd. Finally, Mizuho lowered their price objective on shares of AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $16.63.

AES Company 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.