AES rises after 4th-quarter profit tops estimates; power company plans $400M stock repurchase

Shares of The AES Corp. rose Thursday after the power company's fourth-quarter profit beat Wall Street expectations and it announced plans to buy back $400 million in stock.

AES said its net income totaled $206 million, or 29 cents per share. Excluding one-time items, earnings were 41 cents per share. Analysts expected a profit of 37 cents per share, according to Zacks Investment Research.

Its revenue grew 8.7 percent to $4.13 billion.

The Arlington, Virginia-based company also said it will buy back up to $400 million in stock. In December it doubled its quarterly dividend to 10 cents. AES said the moves reflect confidence in its ability to keep generating cash.

For the year, the company posted profit of $769 million, or $1.06 per share — $1.30 per share if one-time items are excluded. It reported $17.15 billion in revenue.

AES cut its 2015 profit guidance range by 5 cents, to $1.25 to $1.35 per share, because of changes in foreign exchange rates and commodity prices and other issues. Analysts predict $1.25 per share for the year, according to FactSet.

Shares of AES rose 68 cents, or 5.7 percent, to $12.68 in midday trading. AES shares had slumped 13 percent in 2015, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose nearly 3 percent.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on AES at http://www.zacks.com/ap/AES

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Keywords: AES, Earnings Report