Bank of Montreal Can Acquires 131,840 Shares of The AES Co. (NYSE:AES)

Bank of Montreal Can raised its holdings in The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) by 13.5% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,111,366 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 131,840 shares during the quarter. Bank of Montreal Can owned about 0.16% of AES worth $21,038,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale grew its stake in shares of AES by 161.8% during the second quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 107,016 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $2,035,000 after purchasing an additional 66,145 shares during the period. Empowered Funds LLC increased its stake in shares of AES by 1.9% in the 1st quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 124,745 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,237,000 after acquiring an additional 2,273 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC raised its position in shares of AES by 735.2% in the 1st quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 617,387 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $11,070,000 after acquiring an additional 543,464 shares during the period. New Century Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in AES during the first quarter valued at approximately $1,235,000. Finally, Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its stake in AES by 20.1% in the first quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 839,343 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $15,049,000 after purchasing an additional 140,610 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Evercore ISI raised shares of AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Jefferies Financial Group started coverage on AES in a report on Wednesday, September 11th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $20.00 price target for the company. Finally, Barclays cut their price objective on AES from $23.00 to $22.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, July 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has 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 $21.50.

AES Trading Up 2.2 %

NYSE AES opened at $20.08 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.89 and a beta of 1.07. The AES Co. has a 52 week low of $11.43 and a 52 week high of $22.21. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $17.64 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $18.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.63, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 0.97.

AES (NYSE:AES) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.38 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.02. AES had a net margin of 6.07% and a return on equity of 32.74%. The business had revenue of $2.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.22 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.21 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that The AES Co. will post 1.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AES Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 1st were issued a dividend of $0.1725 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 1st. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.44%. AES’s payout ratio is presently 95.83%.

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.