State Street Corp Grows Stake in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

State Street Corp lifted its stake in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES - Free Report) by 18.2% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 38,651,752 shares of the utilities provider's stock after purchasing an additional 5,960,546 shares during the period. State Street Corp owned about 5.44% of AES worth $775,354,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AES. Zurich Insurance Group Ltd FI purchased a new stake in shares of AES in the second quarter valued at approximately $30,746,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its stake in shares of AES by 169.5% during the third quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 2,143,688 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $43,002,000 after buying an additional 1,348,195 shares during the period. Bridgewater Associates LP purchased a new stake in AES in the third quarter worth about $17,390,000. Hsbc Holdings PLC grew its holdings in AES by 41.1% during the 2nd quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 2,898,119 shares of the utilities provider's stock worth $51,293,000 after acquiring an additional 844,888 shares in the last quarter. Finally, TCW Group Inc. increased its position in AES by 45.8% during the 2nd quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 2,639,694 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $46,379,000 after purchasing an additional 828,840 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 93.13% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have weighed in on AES shares. Bank of America began coverage on AES in a report on Monday, November 25th. They set an "underperform" rating and a $11.00 target price for the company. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of AES from $22.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Monday, October 21st. Susquehanna cut their price objective on shares of AES from $24.00 to $21.00 and set a "positive" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, November 5th. Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on shares of AES in a research report on Wednesday, September 11th. They set a "buy" rating and a $20.00 target price for the company. Finally, Mizuho reduced their price target on AES from $24.00 to $16.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, November 21st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, AES has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $20.22.

AES Stock Performance

AES stock traded down $0.24 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $13.05. 8,687,536 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 16,073,056. The AES Co. has a 1 year low of $12.53 and a 1 year high of $22.21. The stock has a market capitalization of $9.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.06, a P/E/G ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21, a current ratio of 0.85 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The firm's 50 day moving average price is $15.60 and its 200-day moving average price is $17.38.

AES (NYSE:AES - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $3.29 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.46 billion. AES had a net margin of 8.34% and a return on equity of 27.30%. AES's revenue for the quarter was down 4.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.60 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that The AES Co. will post 1.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AES Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 31st will be given a $0.176 dividend. This represents a $0.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.39%. This is an increase from AES's previous quarterly dividend of $0.17. AES's dividend payout ratio is 47.92%.

AES 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.