UniSuper Management Pty Ltd Sells 2,739 Shares of The AES Corporation $AES

UniSuper Management Pty Ltd cut its stake in The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES) by 2.0% in the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 137,163 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 2,739 shares during the quarter. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd’s holdings in AES were worth $1,704,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd raised its stake in shares of AES by 21.8% in the first quarter. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd now owns 27,518,952 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $341,785,000 after purchasing an additional 4,930,252 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in shares of AES by 30.4% in the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 20,790,956 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $258,224,000 after purchasing an additional 4,842,149 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. purchased a new stake in shares of AES in the fourth quarter worth approximately $121,627,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of AES by 3.7% in the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 7,134,771 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $88,614,000 after purchasing an additional 255,512 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sound Shore Management Inc. CT raised its stake in shares of AES by 13.6% in the first quarter. Sound Shore Management Inc. CT now owns 6,097,946 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $75,736,000 after purchasing an additional 730,178 shares during the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently commented on AES. Argus reissued a “hold” rating on shares of AES in a research note on Tuesday, May 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on AES from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 22nd. Jefferies Financial Group lowered AES from a “hold” rating to an “underperform” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $10.00 to $9.00 in a report on Tuesday, May 20th. Wall Street Zen raised AES from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, August 2nd. Finally, Barclays upped their target price on AES from $12.00 to $14.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 22nd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, AES has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $24.67.

AES Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AES opened at $12.74 on Thursday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $13.05 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $11.72. The AES Corporation has a 1-year low of $9.46 and a 1-year high of $20.30. The firm has a market cap of $9.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.97, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.52 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a current ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.46.

AES (NYSE:AES) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.51 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.39 by $0.12. AES had a return on equity of 19.02% and a net margin of 8.42%.The business had revenue of $2.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.97 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.38 earnings per share. AES’s revenue was down 3.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that The AES Corporation will post 1.93 earnings per share for the current year.

AES Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 1st were issued a dividend of $0.176 per share. This represents a $0.70 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.5%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 1st. AES’s dividend payout ratio is 49.30%.

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.