Hancock Whitney Corp Sells 1,822 Shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Hancock Whitney Corp trimmed its stake in shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 9.4% during the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 17,526 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 1,822 shares during the quarter. Hancock Whitney Corp’s holdings in AES were worth $308,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Capital World Investors grew its position in 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 during the period. Capital International Investors increased its position in shares of AES by 11.4% during 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. M&G Plc acquired a new position in AES in the first quarter valued at about $123,272,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its stake in AES by 70.8% during the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,441,980 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $124,008,000 after buying an additional 2,670,001 shares during the last quarter. Finally, 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. 93.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently commented on AES. Evercore ISI upgraded AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Barclays cut their price target on AES from $23.00 to $22.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, July 22nd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group initiated coverage on shares of AES in a report on Wednesday, September 11th. They set a “buy” rating and a $20.00 price objective on the stock. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $21.50.

AES Trading Up 2.2 %

Shares of NYSE AES opened at $19.32 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $17.45 and its 200 day simple moving average is $18.06. 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 fifty-two week low of $11.43 and a fifty-two week high of $22.21. The firm has a market capitalization of $13.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.83 and a beta of 1.07.

AES (NYSE:AES) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.38 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 analysts’ expectations of $3.22 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.21 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that The AES Co. will post 1.91 EPS for the current year.

AES Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 1st were paid a $0.1725 dividend. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.57%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 1st. AES’s payout ratio is presently 95.83%.

AES 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.