Central Asset Investments & Management Holdings HK Ltd Reduces Position in The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES)

Key Points

• Central Asset Investments & Management Holdings HK Ltd has significantly reduced its stake in The AES Corporation, selling 27,400 shares and lowering its ownership by 72.1%.
• The AES Corporation posted a quarterly earnings per share (EPS) of $0.51, which exceeds the analysts' consensus estimate of $0.39, although revenue fell 3.0% year-over-year.
• The company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.176 per share, yielding 5.5%, with a payout ratio of 49.30%.

Central Asset Investments & Management Holdings HK Ltd reduced its holdings in shares of The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES - Free Report) by 72.1% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 10,600 shares of the utilities provider's stock after selling 27,400 shares during the quarter. Central Asset Investments & Management Holdings HK Ltd's holdings in AES were worth $132,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in AES. Community Trust & Investment Co. boosted its position in shares of AES by 37.4% in the 1st quarter. Community Trust & Investment Co. now owns 291,418 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $3,619,000 after purchasing an additional 79,355 shares during the period. Lewis Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of AES in the 1st quarter valued at about $1,172,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of AES by 2.5% in the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 824,080 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $10,235,000 after purchasing an additional 20,109 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of AES by 13.3% in the 1st quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,270,543 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $15,780,000 after purchasing an additional 148,772 shares during the period. Finally, Foundry Partners LLC raised its stake in AES by 39.6% during the 1st quarter. Foundry Partners LLC now owns 1,349,118 shares of the utilities provider's stock valued at $16,756,000 after acquiring an additional 382,843 shares during the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have commented on the company. Susquehanna upped their price objective on AES from $15.00 to $16.00 and gave the company a "positive" rating in a research note on Monday, July 21st. HSBC reduced their price objective on AES from $15.00 to $14.00 in a research note on Monday, May 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on AES from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 22nd. Citigroup reduced their price objective on AES from $23.00 to $14.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 9th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on AES from $108.00 to $112.00 in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, AES currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $24.67.

AES Price Performance

Shares of AES traded down $0.10 on Thursday, reaching $12.96. The stock had a trading volume of 5,769,195 shares, compared to its average volume of 10,096,965. The AES Corporation has a twelve month low of $9.46 and a twelve month high of $20.30. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.22 billion, a PE ratio of 9.12, a PEG ratio of 1.56 and a beta of 0.96. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $12.15 and a 200 day moving average of $11.38. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.46.

AES (NYSE:AES - Get Free Report) last released 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 firm had revenue of $2.86 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.97 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.38 EPS. AES's quarterly revenue was down 3.0% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that The AES Corporation will post 1.93 EPS for the current year.

AES Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Investors of record on Friday, August 1st will be paid a $0.176 dividend. This represents a $0.70 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 1st. AES's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.30%.

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.