Everpar Advisors LLC Purchases 4,350 Shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Everpar Advisors LLC grew its holdings in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 29.1% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 19,292 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,350 shares during the quarter. Everpar Advisors LLC’s holdings in AES were worth $248,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of AES. American Century Companies Inc. grew its position in shares of AES by 13.8% during the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,353,854 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $23,787,000 after purchasing an additional 164,606 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its position in AES by 18.7% during the second quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,066,251 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $18,734,000 after buying an additional 168,348 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in AES by 16.5% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,132,744 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $55,084,000 after acquiring an additional 444,252 shares during the period. Mutual of America Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in AES by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter. Mutual of America Capital Management LLC now owns 175,525 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $3,084,000 after acquiring an additional 1,186 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. grew its holdings in shares of AES by 284.9% during the 2nd quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 76,995 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,353,000 after purchasing an additional 56,990 shares in the last quarter. 93.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently commented on AES. Bank of America initiated coverage on AES in a research note on Monday, November 25th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $11.00 price target for the company. Susquehanna reduced their price target 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. Mizuho lowered their price objective on shares of AES from $24.00 to $16.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 21st. Hsbc Global Res upgraded AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Finally, HSBC assumed coverage on AES in a report on Friday, December 13th. They set a “buy” rating and a $17.00 price target for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $19.30.

AES Trading Down 1.3 %

Shares of AES stock opened at $11.85 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.42 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.23, a P/E/G ratio of 0.59 and a beta of 1.00. The AES Co. has a twelve month low of $11.57 and a twelve month high of $22.21. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $12.99 and its 200 day simple moving average is $15.92.

AES (NYSE:AES) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.60 by $0.11. AES had a return on equity of 27.30% and a net margin of 8.34%. The company had revenue of $3.29 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.46 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.60 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 4.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that The AES Co. will post 1.96 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AES Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 31st will be issued a dividend of $0.176 per share. This represents a $0.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.94%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 31st. This is a positive change from AES’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.17. AES’s payout ratio is 47.92%.

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.