AES reported its fiscal second quarter with the company in the middle of the largest event in its recent history: a pending all-cash take-private that has already capped the equity price. On March 1, 2026, the board agreed to sell AES to Horizon Parent - controlled by Global Infrastructure Management and the EQT Infrastructure VI fund - for $15.00 per share, and shareholders approved the deal on June 26. The quarter that followed was genuinely strong on its own terms. Revenue rose 20% to $3.4 billion, operating margin climbed 53%, AES swung from a year-ago net loss to $387 million of net income, and adjusted EBITDA - the measure management runs the segments on - increased 32% to $898 million. Yet the stock barely moved when the numbers landed. There is a reason for that. At $14.70, AES trades roughly 2% below the fixed $15.00 cash price, and that spread, not any single quarter, is what now governs the value of the shares until the deal closes.
Two readings of the quarter matter. The first is operational: a strong quarter driven by U.S. renewables development and energy derivatives, higher spot market prices in Argentina, the AES Ohio rate settlement, and a jump in adjusted EBITDA. The second is accounting: the swing into profit owed a meaningful amount to one-off items - a $186 million pre-tax gain on the sale of Fluence shares and tax credits and benefits that drove the effective rate to 6% - alongside the prior-year quarter carrying unusually heavy charges. The durable takeaway is not the headline EPS; it is that an infrastructure buyer was willing to pay $15.00 for a company that, through the first half, grew adjusted EBITDA by more than a third. The stock is no longer pricing that growth - it is pricing the probability that the deal closes, and little else.