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AES, AES Corp.

Electric Utilities capital-intensive Capital build-outCyclical

AES Corp. is an outline of our strategy and our businesses by SBU, including key financial drivers.

Together with our many stakeholders, we are improving lives by delivering the greener, smarter energy solutions the world needs.

Our diverse workforce is committed to continuous innovation and operational excellence, while partnering with our customers on their strategic energy transitions and continuing to meet their energy needs today.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

AES · AES Corp.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$12.2B

−0.4% YoY · 5% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $12.5B 5-yr avg $12.2B

Gross margin 19% 5-yr avg 21%

Operating margin 20.3% 5-yr avg 13.6%

Owner-earnings margin 29% 5-yr avg 14%

Free cash flow margin −12% 5-yr avg −21%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

Situation: Capital build-out. Capital spending has surged to 48% of sales, today's earnings are charged less depreciation than tomorrow's will be. Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 23% and operating margin about 13% through the cycle, a thin spread that turns the result on volume and the cost of what it sells far more than on the price it sets. The margin is cyclical, swinging between 0.4% and 28% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. Capital spending runs about 23% of sales, well above depreciation, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on supplier & input dependence, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

59% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025

United States41%$5.1B
Chile12%$1.5B
Dominican Republic11%$1.4B
El Salvador9%$1.1B
Mexico6%$760M
Bulgaria6%$687M
Other18%$2.2B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$10.3B	$10.5B	$10.7B	$10.2B	$9.7B	$11.1B	$12.6B	$12.7B	$12.3B	$12.2B	$12.5B	RevenueRevenue
23%	23%	—	23%	28%	24%	20%	20%	—	18%	19%	Gross marginGross mgn
2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	1%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$36M	$999M	$3.0B	$1.7B	$1.3B	$369M	$836M	$1.8B	$3.2B	$2.1B	$2.5B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
0.4%	9.5%	27.6%	16.7%	13.5%	3.3%	6.6%	14.4%	26.3%	17.5%	20.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($1.1B)	($1.2B)	$1.2B	$303M	$46M	($409M)	($546M)	$249M	$1.7B	$910M	$1.4B	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	37%	54%	—	—	—	51%	3%	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$2.9B	$2.5B	$2.3B	$2.5B	$2.8B	$1.9B	$2.7B	$3.0B	$2.8B	$4.3B	$5.0B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.6B	DepreciationDeprec.
$2.9B	$2.5B	$137M	$1.1B	$1.6B	$1.3B	$4.3B	$3.9B	$2.3B	$4.9B	$5.2B	Working capital & otherWC & other
$2.3B	$2.2B	$2.1B	$2.4B	$1.9B	$2.1B	$4.6B	$7.7B	$7.4B	$5.9B	$6.4B	CapexCapex
22.8%	20.7%	19.8%	23.6%	19.7%	19.0%	36.1%	61.0%	60.2%	48.5%	51.6%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$1.7B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.7B	$846M	$1.4B	$1.7B	$1.5B	$3.1B	$3.7B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
16.7%	12.7%	12.5%	13.9%	17.5%	7.6%	11.3%	13.7%	12.2%	24.9%	29.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$552M	$327M	$222M	$61M	$855M	($214M)	($1.8B)	($4.7B)	($4.6B)	($1.6B)	($1.5B)	Free cash flowFCF
5.4%	3.1%	2.1%	0.6%	8.9%	−1.9%	−14.6%	−37.0%	−37.8%	−13.3%	−11.8%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$52M	$609M	$66M	$192M	$136M	$658M	$243M	$542M	$246M	$108M	$104M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$290M	$317M	$344M	$362M	$381M	$401M	$422M	$444M	$483M	$501M	$501M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$79M	$0	$0	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
-40%	-47%	38%	10%	2%	-15%	-22%	10%	46%	22%	31%	Return on equityROE
−51%	−60%	27%	−2%	−13%	−29%	−40%	−8%	33%	10%	19%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$1.7B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.2B	$2.1B	$1.8B	$1.6B	$1.6B	$1.7B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.4B	$1.8B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$11M	$1.7B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$622M	$562M	$577M	$487M	$461M	$604M	$1.1B	$712M	$593M	$612M	$648M	InventoryInvent.
$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.7B	$2.2B	$1.7B	$2.0B	$2.0B	Accounts payablePayables
$805M	$654M	$843M	$655M	$784M	$869M	$1.1B	($67M)	$585M	($1.4B)	$337M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$6.4B	$6.4B	$5.0B	$5.2B	$5.4B	$5.4B	$7.6B	$6.6B	$6.8B	$6.5B	$6.1B	Current assetsCur. assets
$5.3B	$6.0B	$4.4B	$5.1B	$5.4B	$4.7B	$6.5B	$9.7B	$8.6B	$8.5B	$8.4B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.2×	1.1×	1.1×	1.0×	1.0×	1.1×	1.2×	0.7×	0.8×	0.8×	0.7×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$362M	$348M	$345M	$342M	$342M	GoodwillGoodwill
$36.1B	$33.1B	$32.5B	$33.6B	$34.6B	$33.0B	$38.4B	$44.8B	$47.4B	$51.8B	$52.8B	Total assetsAssets
0.0×	0.9×	2.8×	1.6×	1.3×	0.4×	0.7×	1.4×	2.2×	1.5×	1.8×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$2.8B	$2.5B	$3.2B	$3.0B	$2.6B	$2.8B	$2.4B	$2.5B	$3.6B	$4.1B	$4.4B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
											Per share
660M	660M	665M	667M	668M	666M	668M	712M	713M	714M	715M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$15.58	$15.95	$16.14	$15.28	$14.46	$16.73	$18.89	$17.79	$17.22	$17.13	$17.46	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.71	$-1.76	$1.81	$0.45	$0.07	$-0.61	$-0.82	$0.35	$2.35	$1.27	$1.89	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.61	$2.02	$2.02	$2.13	$2.53	$1.27	$2.13	$2.44	$2.09	$4.27	$5.15	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.84	$0.50	$0.33	$0.09	$1.28	$-0.32	$-2.75	$-6.59	$-6.51	$-2.27	$-2.07	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.44	$0.48	$0.52	$0.54	$0.57	$0.60	$0.63	$0.62	$0.68	$0.70	$0.70	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$3.55	$3.30	$3.19	$3.61	$2.84	$3.18	$6.81	$10.85	$10.37	$8.30	$9.01	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$4.23	$3.73	$4.82	$4.49	$3.94	$4.20	$3.65	$3.49	$5.11	$5.69	$6.18	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+1.1%/yr	+3.4%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+5.6%/yr	+11.1%/yr
EPS	—	+79.3%/yr
Dividends / share	+5.3%/yr	+4.2%/yr
Capital spending / share	+9.9%/yr	+23.9%/yr
Book value / share	+3.3%/yr	+7.6%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

714Mpeak FY2025

Gross margin

18%low FY2025

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$3.1Bowner earningsvs.$910Mnet incomelow FY2021

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business earned $3.1B of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $1.3B it takes just to hold its position. It put $4.7B more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was ($1.6B).

Reported net income$910M

Owner earnings$3.1B · 25% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$910M	$1.7B	$249M	($546M)	($409M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	−$1.5B	−$1.3B	−$1.1B	−$1.1B	+$1.1B
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$4.9B	+$2.3B	+$3.9B	+$4.3B	+$1.3B
Cash from operations	$4.3B	$2.8B	$3.0B	$2.7B	$1.9B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$1.3B	−$1.3B	−$1.3B	−$1.3B	−$1.1B
Owner earnings	$3.1B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.4B	$846M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$4.7B	−$6.1B	−$6.4B	−$3.3B	−$1.1B
Free cash flow	($1.6B)	($4.6B)	($4.7B)	($1.8B)	($214M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	25%	12%	14%	11%	8%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $1.3B, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $4.7B of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Material weakness in financial controls

“In recent years, Fluence has reported a material weakness in its internal control over revenue recognition that was remediated as of December 31, 2024.”

The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 1.5×

Thin

Operating income $2.1B ÷ interest expense $1.4B

What this means
Operating profit covers interest, but with little room. A bad year, a refinancing at higher rates, or a revenue wobble closes the gap fast.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? —

Debt under-captured — leverage unknown, not low

What this means
This company pays far more interest than its tagged debt implies (the rest sits under segment dimensions the data source strips), so its net cash or net debt cannot be read honestly: the gap is unknown, not zero, and 'net cash' here would be exactly the fiction the figure is meant to prevent. Judge it on the record and owner earnings instead.
How long is cash tied up? -49d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 0 + DIO 22 − DPO 72 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital —

Debt under-captured

Industry peers: median 5%

What this means
This company's interest bill implies far more debt than its filings tag at the consolidated level (the rest sits under segment dimensions the data source strips), so invested capital, and the return on it, cannot be read honestly. Judge this one on Owner Earnings and the record instead.
Owner-earnings margin 13%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 8%–25%; latest $3.1B = operating cash $4.3B − maintenance capex $1.3B

Industry peers: median 17%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 25% of revenue this year, a 13% median across 10 years. It chose to put $4.7B more into growth, so free cash flow this year was ($1.6B) — the gap is investment, not weakness.
Are earnings backed by cash? 4.73×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $4.3B ÷ net income $910M

In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 16%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $501M ÷ Owner Earnings $3.1B

What this means
Of $3.1B Owner Earnings, $501M (16%) went back to shareholders, $501M dividends, $0 buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? -4.07×

Harvesting

Capex $5.9B ÷ depreciation ($1.5B)

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 4 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $12.2B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.77×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt —

Debt ≤ working capital · —

What this means
The filings tag only a fraction of the debt this company's interest bill implies (much of it sits under segment dimensions the data source strips), so this test can't be run honestly.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 4 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $1.33/share (latest year $1.28), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $5.70/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 6 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin 12% → 19% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing ties gains to its own pricing, but names price competition too — pricing power that is real yet contested, not unopposed. The margin shows who is winning.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 12% early to 19% lately, median 13% — pricing power intact or improving.
Owner earnings growth +5%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 5% a year over the record.
Worst year 2016 · 0.4% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +0.9%/yr

What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
The record and the register agree: capital is compounding and the filing reasons in an owner’s terms — per-share value, return on capital, the long term — not a promoter’s.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Framed as a capability

The filing positions AI as something the company uses, not something it fears.

“This segment includes ownership stakes in third-party platforms and internally developed initiatives, such as investments in Fluence, Maximo, the AI Fund, Uplight, and 5B.”

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$6.1B

Cash & short-term investments$1.7B
Receivables$1.7B
Inventory$648M
Other current assets$2.2B

Current liabilities$8.4B

Accounts payable$2.0B
Other current liabilities$6.4B

Current ratio0.73×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.65×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.20×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($2.3B)the cushion left after near-term bills

Its current ratio is below 1, which usually reads as strain; here it is likely structural strength. This business collects from customers before it pays suppliers (a negative cash-conversion cycle), so the balance sheet is funded by that float, the way Costco's and Amazon's are. The low ratio can be the edge, not the risk; the cash-conversion cycle and the debt due above say which.

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+8.7%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.0× → 0.7×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$2.1Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$430M$430M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $1.2B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$245Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, operating and finance leases together, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

Operating leasesFinance leases

'26$86M

'27$77M

'28$74M

'29$74M

'30$75M

later$2.2B

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$86Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$2.6Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$1.2Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$0

Lease obligations (present value)$1.2B

Total fixed claims on the business$1.2B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $1.2B, of which the leases are 100%, more than the debt itself. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $27.7B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$38.7B · 140%
Dividends$3.9B · 14%
Buybacks$79M · 0%

Returned to owners$4.0B
25% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $3.9B as dividends and $79M as buybacks.
Source of funding−$15.0B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $15.0B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.
Average price paid for buybacks$9.08
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 9M shares were bought for $79M, about $9.08 each.
Net change in share count8.3%
The diluted count rose from 660M to 715M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.70/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 5% a year. It was never cut over the span.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$2.4B5% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity8%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$2.9Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $38.7B of capital spent building

$789M written down across 2 years (2022, 2023): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 28% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	$14.4M	$13.5M	$846M
2022	$12.5M	$27.9M	$1.4B
2023	$12.7M	−$5.5M	$1.7B
2024	$13.4M	$5.9M	$1.5B
2025	$9.2M	$13.4M	$3.1B

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership0.8%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio120:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why AES Corp. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

2 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?8.3%
Diluted shares grew 8.3% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $79M on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?10 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 10 of the last 10 years, $9.2B in all. A charge taken almost every year is not one-time; it is the business — past deals coming due, and an admission the assets were worth less than what was paid. Munger's rule: when the "one-time" keeps happening, it is the business. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

Peers, Electric Utilities

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
ESEversource Energy (D/B/A)	$13.5B	—	20.2%	5%	8%
ETREntergy Corporation	$12.9B	—	15.3%	5%	13%
AESAES Corp.	$12.2B	23%	13.9%	—	13%
PEGPublic Service Enterprise Group Inc	$12.2B	68%	21.1%	6%	17%
WECWEC Energy Group Inc.	$9.8B	64%	22.1%	6%	18%
CNPCenterPoint Energy Inc (Holding Co)	$9.3B	—	17.4%	5%	9%
PPLPPL Corporation	$9.0B	—	25.9%	5%	20%
AEEAmeren Corporation	$8.8B	—	21.5%	5%	18%
Group median	—	64%	20.7%	—	15%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what AES Corp. has delivered.

AES Corp.’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, the mark of a build-out: total capital spending outruns the cash the business throws off today. So the tool opens on the steady-state base (maintenance capex in place of the build-out spend), the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, AES Corp. earns about $1.6B on its 13.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 24.9% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($1.6B) Net of stock comp Steady-state · maintenance capex ($3.7B)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+19%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+5%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow ($1.5B) on 713M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net cash $1.7B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($6.4B) runs well above depreciation (($1.6B)), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $3.7B, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh AES against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "AES Corp. (AES), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/AES, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← AEP its page in the Manual AESI →

Industry order: ← AEP the Electric Utilities chapter AQN →