AES Corp. / AES

About AES Corp.

4300 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Va. 22203
www.aes.com | 703-522-1315 | Founded: 1981

Industry: Energy | Category: Top 100 Companies

AES continued its strategy of seeking power-generation opportunities in far-flung places. It began building a lignite coal-fired plant in Bulgaria, started construction of a wind farm in Texas and bought stakes in French, British and Bulgarian wind-farm developers. It also bought two petroleum coke-fired power plants in Mexico, doubling its capacity there. Meanwhile, an AES wind farm in Texas started generating power for the first time, as did a 1,200 megawatt gas-fired plant in Spain.
The company said it would spend $1 billion over three years on alternative energy and on projects that would generate carbon credits that could be sold to companies that need to offset carbon dioxide emissions under European regulations limiting greenhouse gases.
In January of this year, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would nationalize strategic industries, and AES ended up having to sell its controlling stake in the profitable Caracas electric utility for about $739 million. The compensation was more than many AES executives expected, though it was substantially less than AES had paid for its 82 percent interest. The company said it would end up taking a charge of $550 million to $650 million in the first quarter of 2007. Earlier, the company restructured its regulated Brazilian utility, Electropaulo, resulting in a $500 million charge in the third quarter last year.
Earnings were unavailable for this report because the company postponed their release in February, saying it planned to restate figures.

Chairman: Philip A. Odeen

2007 Financial Data

Total employees: 30,000 | Local employees: 400