Flputnam Investment Management Co. Grows Stock Position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Flputnam Investment Management Co. boosted its position in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 12.3% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 40,581 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,455 shares during the period. Flputnam Investment Management Co.’s holdings in AES were worth $781,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its position in shares of AES by 15.5% in the third quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 679,615 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $10,330,000 after purchasing an additional 91,247 shares in the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC grew its position in AES by 370.1% during the third quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 116,537 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,770,000 after buying an additional 91,749 shares in the last quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. grew its position in AES by 81.2% during the third quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 351,220 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $5,339,000 after buying an additional 157,421 shares in the last quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd grew its position in AES by 54.8% during the third quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 273,365 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $4,157,000 after buying an additional 96,808 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Channing Capital Management LLC grew its position in AES by 16.7% during the third quarter. Channing Capital Management LLC now owns 352,276 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $5,355,000 after buying an additional 50,341 shares in the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Barclays dropped their price target on AES from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 14th. Argus reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $25.00 target price on shares of AES in a research note on Tuesday, March 26th. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $25.00 target price on shares of AES in a research note on Monday, March 25th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $22.00 target price on shares of AES in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. Finally, UBS Group lowered their target price on AES from $20.00 to $19.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $22.29.

AES Trading Up 1.4 %

AES opened at $16.14 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.42, a current ratio of 0.68 and a quick ratio of 0.61. The firm has a market capitalization of $11.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 48.91 and a beta of 1.08. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $16.47 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $16.64. The AES Co. has a one year low of $11.43 and a one year high of $24.56.

AES (NYSE:AES) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 27th. The utilities provider reported $0.73 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.67 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $2.97 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.36 billion. AES had a return on equity of 38.76% and a net margin of 2.12%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 3.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.49 EPS. Analysts predict that The AES Co. will post 1.91 EPS for the current year.

AES Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.1725 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 30th. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.28%. 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.