WASHINGTON TRUST Co Buys 190,352 Shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

WASHINGTON TRUST Co lifted its holdings in shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 17,133.4% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 191,463 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 190,352 shares during the quarter. WASHINGTON TRUST Co’s holdings in AES were worth $3,686,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of AES. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of AES by 1.6% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 83,790,219 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,155,923,000 after purchasing an additional 1,285,423 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. boosted its stake in shares of AES by 1.9% during the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 46,239,885 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $958,553,000 after purchasing an additional 844,270 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of AES by 38.6% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 36,821,650 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $559,689,000 after purchasing an additional 10,256,781 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of AES by 2.1% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 34,486,785 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $714,911,000 after purchasing an additional 693,158 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in AES by 2.1% during the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,753,238 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $330,415,000 after acquiring an additional 283,075 shares during the period. 93.13% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on AES. Barclays lowered their price target on shares of AES from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 14th. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $25.00 price target on shares of AES in a research report on Monday. Finally, Argus reissued a “buy” rating and set a $25.00 price target on shares of AES in a research report on Tuesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $21.57.

AES Price Performance

Shares of AES traded up $0.42 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $17.67. The stock had a trading volume of 5,071,837 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,410,535. The firm has a market cap of $12.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 52.27, a PEG ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.07. The AES Co. has a 12 month low of $11.43 and a 12 month high of $25.74. The business has a fifty day moving average of $16.27 and a 200 day moving average of $16.53. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.42, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a current ratio of 0.68.

AES (NYSE:AES) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 27th. The utilities provider reported $0.73 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.67 by $0.06. AES had a net margin of 2.12% and a return on equity of 38.76%. The firm had revenue of $2.97 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.36 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.49 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 3.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts predict that The AES Co. will post 1.9 EPS for the current year.

AES Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.1725 per share. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 30th. AES’s payout ratio is 209.10%.

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.