The AES Co. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.18 (NYSE:AES)

The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 21st, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, May 1st will be given a dividend of 0.176 per share by the utilities provider on Thursday, May 15th. This represents a $0.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.91%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 1st.

AES has raised its dividend by an average of 4.4% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 12 years. AES has a payout ratio of 31.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect AES to earn $2.02 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.70 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 34.7%.

AES Price Performance

AES opened at $10.19 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21, a current ratio of 0.85 and a quick ratio of 0.80. AES has a 1 year low of $9.57 and a 1 year high of $22.21. The firm has a market cap of $7.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.08, a PEG ratio of 0.82 and a beta of 0.81. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $11.29 and its 200 day simple moving average is $12.51.

AES (NYSE:AES) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $2.96 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.07 billion. AES had a return on equity of 27.30% and a net margin of 8.34%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.73 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that AES will post 1.93 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AES has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on AES from $16.00 to $14.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, April 24th. Seaport Res Ptn downgraded shares of AES from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Monday, March 3rd. Bank of America upgraded shares of AES from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $11.00 to $13.00 in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Mizuho lowered their price target on AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Finally, Susquehanna cut their price objective on AES from $16.00 to $15.00 and set a “positive” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 5th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $13.71.

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.