BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp Has $2.39 Million Position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp increased its stake in shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 71.6% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 136,142 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 56,792 shares during the quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp’s holdings in AES were worth $2,392,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AES has been the topic of several recent research reports. Evercore ISI upgraded shares of AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Barclays reduced their price objective on shares of AES from $23.00 to $22.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, July 22nd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on AES in a research report on Wednesday, September 11th. They set a “buy” rating and a $20.00 target price for the company. One 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 issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, AES currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $21.50.

AES Price Performance

AES stock opened at $20.07 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $17.64 and its 200 day simple moving average is $18.15. The AES Co. has a 12-month low of $11.43 and a 12-month high of $22.21. The firm has a market cap of $14.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.88 and a beta of 1.07.

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

AES Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 1st were given a dividend of $0.1725 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 1st. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.44%. AES’s payout ratio is presently 95.83%.

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.