Channing Capital Management LLC Increases Stock Position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Channing Capital Management LLC boosted its position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 1.0% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 355,637 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,361 shares during the quarter. Channing Capital Management LLC’s holdings in AES were worth $6,846,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. FMR LLC grew its holdings in AES by 38.6% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 36,821,650 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $559,689,000 after acquiring an additional 10,256,781 shares in the last quarter. CI Investments Inc. lifted its holdings in AES by 18,505.6% during the 3rd quarter. CI Investments Inc. now owns 2,030,429 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $30,862,000 after buying an additional 2,019,516 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. raised its position in shares of AES by 24.2% during the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 7,611,339 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $115,692,000 after acquiring an additional 1,484,052 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC boosted its holdings in AES by 114.1% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 2,677,405 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $40,697,000 after purchasing an additional 1,426,662 shares during the period. Finally, Strs Ohio bought a new stake in AES during the third quarter valued at $14,531,000. 93.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently commented on AES. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $25.00 price target on shares of AES in a report on Monday, March 25th. Argus reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $25.00 price target on shares of AES in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. UBS Group reduced their price objective on AES from $20.00 to $19.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 3rd. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $22.00 target price on shares of AES in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. Finally, Mizuho assumed coverage on shares of AES in a research report on Thursday, April 18th. They set a “buy” rating and a $21.00 price target for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $22.13.

AES Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AES traded up $0.14 during mid-day trading on Monday, reaching $18.81. 5,951,566 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 8,276,236. The AES Co. has a fifty-two week low of $11.43 and a fifty-two week high of $23.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.04, a current ratio of 0.78 and a quick ratio of 0.71. The firm has a market cap of $13.37 billion, a PE ratio of 25.93 and a beta of 1.08. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $16.73 and a 200-day simple moving average of $17.02.

AES (NYSE:AES) last released its earnings results on Friday, May 3rd. The utilities provider reported $0.50 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.34 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $3.09 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.20 billion. AES had a return on equity of 36.23% and a net margin of 4.40%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.22 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that The AES Co. will post 1.91 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AES Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 1st will be paid a $0.1725 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 30th. This represents a $0.69 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.67%. 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.