Whittier Trust Co. Sells 4,944 Shares of The AES Corporation $AES

Whittier Trust Co. lowered its holdings in shares of The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES) by 7.0% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 65,444 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 4,944 shares during the period. Whittier Trust Co.’s holdings in AES were worth $688,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its holdings in AES by 25.0% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 7,115,438 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $88,374,000 after purchasing an additional 1,421,899 shares during the period. Lewis Asset Management LLC bought a new position in AES during the first quarter worth about $1,172,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in AES by 2.5% during the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 824,080 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $10,235,000 after purchasing an additional 20,109 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in AES by 13.3% during the first quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,270,543 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $15,780,000 after purchasing an additional 148,772 shares during the period. Finally, Foundry Partners LLC grew its holdings in AES by 39.6% during the first quarter. Foundry Partners LLC now owns 1,349,118 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $16,756,000 after purchasing an additional 382,843 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Evercore ISI assumed coverage on AES in a report on Monday, October 6th. They set an “in-line” rating and a $15.00 price objective for the company. Barclays boosted their price objective on AES from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on AES from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 22nd. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on AES from $16.00 to $17.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a report on Monday, October 13th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on AES from $23.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $23.91.

AES Trading Down 0.6%

Shares of AES stock opened at $14.21 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.46. The stock has a market cap of $10.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.59 and a beta of 0.93. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $13.59 and a 200 day simple moving average of $12.14. The AES Corporation has a 1 year low of $9.46 and a 1 year high of $17.37.

AES (NYSE:AES) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.39 by $0.12. The business had revenue of $2.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.97 billion. AES had a return on equity of 19.02% and a net margin of 8.42%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.38 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that The AES Corporation will post 1.93 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AES Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 31st will be given a dividend of $0.176 per share. This represents a $0.70 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.0%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 31st. AES’s payout ratio is currently 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.