Long AES - Why I like the stock

**What is AES?** AES generates and distributes electricity across 15 countries, serves approximately 2.6 million customers through its utilities, and employs around 9,100 people worldwide. In the US they operate regulated utilities in Indiana and Ohio. Internationally they run power generation across South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and parts of Asia. Over the last decade they’ve been deliberately pivoting away from fossil fuels and into clean energy which is central to my thesis. **The Thesis** Energy is the single biggest bottleneck for datacenter expansion, and clean energy will continue to be in high demand. Every major hyperscaler has committed to carbon-neutral operations, which means they’re signing decade-long agreements to lock in clean power specifically. AES sits directly in that lane already. Bloomberg has ranked them the largest provider of clean energy to corporate customers for five consecutive years, and just this week AES signed 20-year PPAs with Google for co-located power generation at a new Texas data center. Their total PPA backlog now sits at 11.1 GW, with 5 GW already under construction and expected online by 2027. The market is punishing their high capex spend while rewarding the hyperscalers for theirs, but this spend is yielding contracted cash flows that haven’t hit the income statement yet. **Price** AES is trading at \~$16.38 as of today. Trailing P/E sits at 9.7x trailing, 6.41x forward (we’ll see how earnings shake out in the morning!) while the utilities sector average P/E is around 21x. Morgan Stanley has a current price target of $23 with an Overweight rating. Argus just upgraded to Buy in December. Even the bears are conceding the stock is cheap. Management is guiding 7-9% annualized EPS growth through 2027, with 5.1 GW of contracted capacity still under construction and not yet earning. If 2027 EPS hits the low end of that trajectory at around $2.50 and the market re-rates to even a modest 15x as those assets go operational, you’re looking at $37-$38 from a $16 stock. Another potential catalyst would be M&A activity giving a 20%+ premium; there were talks of a blackrock buyout, but no clear offers are on the table at the moment. It’s also currently paying a cool 4% dividend, which is a nice to have while holding on for a large rerate or a buyout. **The Debt** \~$30.9B in total debt, 300% D/E. Worth taking seriously. The vast majority though is non-recourse, secured against individual subsidiary assets and their contracted cash flows. Absent explicit guarantees, a subsidiary default doesn’t cascade to the parent. So it’s more of a portfolio of project-finance structures each backed by its own revenue stream, not $30.9B sitting on the parent’s balance sheet. On near-term maturities: in March 2025 AES refinanced $900M of notes due July 2025 into new Senior Unsecured Notes due 2032, rated BBB- by S&P. Management also finances growth using long-term fixed-rate non-recourse debt with pre-hedged interest rate exposure, which blunts the rate-risk argument considerably. They’ve completed $2.8B of a $3.5B asset monetization target through 2027, recycling capital from mature assets into new contracted builds. **Policy Risk** The current administration is a potential headwind, however, essentially all solar panels, trackers and batteries for US projects coming online through 2027 are domestically produced or contracted to be, and clean energy is also the cheapest new-build option in most markets now regardless of subsidies, and grid reliability concerns are driving utility investment independent of climate policy. **Management** Andrés Gluski has been CEO since 2011, holds \~1.98M shares, and less than 10% of his \~$13m comp is base salary. The annual incentive scorecard explicitly includes Green Growth and New Business Models as named performance metrics, meaning he’s being paid to push the hyperscaler PPA pipeline forward and his motivations are aligned with shareholders. **Risks to Watch** Hypothetically, construction delays are a direct threat to the thesis. If the 5 GW backlog doesn’t come online by 2027, the re-rating story weakens. That said, AES completed 3.5 GW in 2023, 3.0 GW in 2024, and was on track for 3.2 GW through 2025, so three consecutive years of hitting targets is reassuring. The interest coverage ratio of 1.6x means limited cushion if earnings disappoint. The non-recourse structure helps at the parent level but it’s worth watching. There’s an active $4B lawsuit from Panamanian LNG companies alleging AES monopolized Panama’s energy market through improper means. It’s geographically and operationally separate from the US renewables thesis, and a full judgment seems unlikely, but a partial settlement could sting. A drought cost $189M in EBITDA from South American hydro in 2024, so natural disaster exposure is real. Post-2027 ITC/PTC changes could shift new-build economics, though the existing backlog is largely safe-harbored before that matters.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ **My Position** Over 5% of my brokerage is AES at the moment; I’m up 40% on my earliest entry in the fall but continuing to buy more shares now that I have increased conviction. I don’t do options and typically hold forever, so I’m planning to keep for the long haul! Reactions, criticism, or concerns?