The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) Raises Dividend to $0.18 Per Share

The AES Co. (NYSE:AES) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, December 6th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 31st will be paid a dividend of 0.176 per share by the utilities provider on Friday, February 14th. This represents a $0.70 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.40%. This is a boost from AES’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.17.

AES has increased its dividend payment by an average of 5.0% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 11 years. AES has a payout ratio of 33.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect AES to earn $2.04 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.69 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 33.8%.

AES Trading Down 1.8 %

AES opened at $13.05 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. AES has a 52 week low of $12.53 and a 52 week high of $22.21. The business’s 50 day moving average is $15.60 and its two-hundred day moving average is $17.40. The firm has a market cap of $9.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.01.

AES (NYSE:AES) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.11. AES had a net margin of 8.34% and a return on equity of 27.30%. The firm had revenue of $3.29 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.46 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.60 EPS. AES’s quarterly revenue was down 4.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that AES will post 1.95 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Bank of America started coverage on AES in a report on Monday, November 25th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $11.00 target price on the stock. Evercore ISI upgraded shares of AES to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Susquehanna lowered their target price on shares of AES from $24.00 to $21.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, November 5th. Barclays raised their price target on AES from $22.00 to $23.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, October 21st. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group initiated coverage on shares of AES in a research report on Wednesday, September 11th. They set a “buy” rating and a $20.00 target price on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, AES presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $20.22.

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.