600,000 Shares in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) Acquired by HITE Hedge Asset Management LLC

HITE Hedge Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 600,000 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $10,542,000. AES comprises approximately 1.0% of HITE Hedge Asset Management LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 26th biggest holding. HITE Hedge Asset Management LLC owned about 0.08% of AES at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of AES. Capital World Investors lifted its holdings in AES by 76.9% in the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 71,348,566 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,373,460,000 after purchasing an additional 31,009,718 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its holdings 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 buying an additional 7,969,594 shares during the period. M&G Plc acquired a new position in AES in the 1st quarter valued at $123,272,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its position in 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 acquiring an additional 2,670,001 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 1,929,523 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

AES Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE AES opened at $19.10 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $13.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.53 and a beta of 1.07. The AES Co. has a one year low of $11.43 and a one year high of $22.21. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $17.48 and a 200 day simple moving average of $18.08. The company has a current ratio of 0.97, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63.

AES (NYSE:AES) last released 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. The company had revenue of $2.94 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.22 billion. AES had a net margin of 6.07% and a return on equity of 32.74%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.21 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that The AES Co. will post 1.91 EPS for the current year.

AES Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 1st were issued a $0.1725 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 1st. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.61%. AES’s payout ratio is presently 95.83%.

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.