AES Valuation Multiples

Alphabet is a holding company that wholly owns internet giant Google. The California-based company derives slightly less than 90% of its revenue from Google services, the vast majority of which is advertising sales. Alongside online ads, Google services houses sales stemming from Google’s subscription services (YouTube TV and YouTube Music, among others), platforms (sales and in-app purchases on Play Store), and devices (Chromebooks, Pixel smartphones, and smart home products such as Chromecast). Google’s cloud computing platform accounts for roughly 10% of Alphabet’s revenue. The firm’s investments in up-and-coming technologies such as self-driving cars (Waymo), health (Verily), and internet access (Google Fiber) make up the rest.

Microsoft develops and licenses consumer and enterprise software. It is known for its Windows operating systems and Office productivity suite. The company is organized into three equally sized broad segments: productivity and business processes (legacy Microsoft Office, cloud-based Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Skype, LinkedIn, Dynamics), intelligence cloud (infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service offerings Azure, Windows Server OS, SQL Server), and more personal computing (Windows Client, Xbox, Bing search, display advertising, and Surface laptops, tablets, and desktops).

Saudi Aramco is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia and holds the exclusive right to explore for, produce, and refine the country’s hydrocarbons. It is the largest oil and gas producer in the world with a production volume of 12.4 mmboe/d in 2024, including 10.8 mmboe/d of liquids. Its 4.1 mmb/d in net refining capacity makes it the world’s fourth-largest refiner. It also owns 57.6 million metric tons of chemical manufacturing capacity, placing it among the top five global chemical companies.

ExxonMobil is an integrated oil and gas company that explores for, produces, and refines oil worldwide. In 2025, it produced 3.3 million barrels of liquids and 8.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. At the end of 2024, reserves were 19.9 billion barrels of oil equivalent, 69% of which were liquids. The company is one of the world's largest refiners, with a total global refining capacity of 4.3 million barrels of oil per day, and is one of the world's largest manufacturers of commodity and specialty chemicals.

Oracle provides enterprise applications and infrastructure offerings through a variety of flexible IT deployment models, including on-premises, cloud-based, and hybrid. Founded in 1977, Oracle pioneered the first commercial SQL-based relational database management system, which is commonly used by the world’s largest companies for high-volume online transaction processing workloads. Besides databases, Oracle also sells enterprise resource planning platforms and cloud infrastructure that play an increasingly important role in large language model training and inferencing.

Cisco Systems is the largest provider of networking equipment in the world and one of the largest software companies in the world. Its largest businesses are selling networking hardware and software (where it has leading market shares) and cybersecurity software such as firewalls. It also has collaboration products, like its Webex suite, and observability tools. It primarily outsources its manufacturing to third parties and has a large sales and marketing staff—25,000 strong across 90 countries. Overall, Cisco employs 80,000 people and sells its products globally.

GE Aerospace is the global leader in designing, manufacturing, and servicing commercial aircraft turbine engines, along with partner Safran in their CFM joint venture. With its massive global installed base of nearly 80,000 commercial and military engines, GE Aerospace earns most of its profits on recurring service revenue of that equipment, which operates for decades. GE Aerospace is the remaining core business of the company formed in 1892 with historical ties to American inventor Thomas Edison; that company became a storied conglomerate with peak revenue of $130 billion in 2000 until GE spun off its appliance, finance, healthcare, and wind and power businesses between 2016 and 2024.

Chevron is an integrated energy company with exploration, production, and refining operations worldwide. It is the second-largest oil company in the United States with production of 3.0 million of barrels of oil equivalent a day, including 7.7 million cubic feet a day of natural gas and 1.7 million of barrels of liquids a day. Production activities take place in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Its refineries are in the US and Asia for total refining capacity of 1.8 million barrels of oil a day. Proven reserves at year-end 2024 stood at 9.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent, including 5.1 billion barrels of liquids and 28.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Palantir is an artificial intelligence, analytics, and automated decision-making company that leverages data to drive efficiency across its clients' organizations. The firm serves commercial and government clients via its Foundry and Gotham platforms, respectively. Palantir works only with entities in Western-allied nations and reserves the right not to work with anyone that is antithetical to Western values. The company was founded in 2003 and went public in 2020.

Dell Technologies is a broad information technology vendor, primarily supplying hardware to enterprises. It focuses on premium and commercial personal computers, as well as enterprise on-premises data center hardware. It holds top-three market shares in its core markets of personal computers, peripheral displays, mainstream servers, and external storage. Dell has a robust ecosystem of component and assembly partners, and also relies heavily on channel partners to fulfill its sales.

PetroChina, the national champion that inherited the majority of Chinese onshore oil and gas assets, has developed into an international supermajor. In 2024, it produced more than 1.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent of oil and gas, and processed 1.4 billion barrels of crude oil. It also has more than 22,000 service stations. The fluctuations in the prices of crude oil, refined products, chemical products, and natural gas have a significant impact on PetroChina’s revenue. State-owned China National Petroleum Corp is PetroChina’s controlling shareholder with a stake of more than 82%.

Alibaba is the world's largest online and mobile commerce company as measured by gross merchandise volume. It operates China's online marketplaces, including Taobao (consumer-to-consumer) and Tmall (business-to-consumer). The China retail e-commerce platform is the most valuable cash flow-generating business at Alibaba. Additional revenue sources include China wholesale e-commerce, international retail and wholesale e-commerce, local consumer services, travel services, cloud computing, digital media and entertainment, Cainiao logistics services, and other businesses.

RTX is an aerospace and defense manufacturer formed from the merger of United Technologies and Raytheon, with roughly equal exposure across three segments, mostly as a supplier to commercial aerospace and to the defense market: Collins Aerospace, a diversified aerospace supplier; Pratt & Whitney, a commercial and military aircraft engine manufacturer; and Raytheon, a defense prime contractor providing a mix of missiles, missile defense systems, sensors, hardware, and communications technology to the military.

Incorporated in 1911, International Business Machines, or IBM, is one of the oldest technology companies in the world. It provides software, IT consulting services, and hardware to help business customers modernize their technology workflows. IBM operates in 175 countries and employs approximately 300,000 people. The company has a robust roster of business partners to service its clients, which includes 95% of all Fortune 500 companies. IBM’s products, including Red Hat, watsonx, and mainframes, handle some of the world’s most important data workloads in areas like finance and retail.

Palo Alto Networks is a platform-based cybersecurity vendor with product offerings covering network security, cloud security, and security operations. The California-based firm has more than 80,000 enterprise customers across the world, including more than three fourths of the Global 2000.

Shell is an integrated oil and gas company that explores for, produces, and refines oil around the world. In 2024, it produced 1.5 million barrels of liquids and 7.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. At year-end 2024, reserves stood at 9.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent, 48% of which consisted of liquids. Its production and reserves are in Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, and North and South America. The company operates refineries with a capacity of 1.6 mmb/d located in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, and sells about 12 million tons per year of chemicals. Its largest chemical plants, often integrated with its local refineries, are in Central Europe, China, Singapore, and North America.

TotalEnergies is an integrated oil and gas company that explores for, produces, and refines oil around the world. In 2024, it produced 1.5 million barrels of liquids and 5.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. At the end of 2024, reserves stood at 11.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent, 54% of which are liquids. During 2024, it had LNG sales of 39.8 million metric tons. The company owns interests in refineries with a capacity of nearly 1.8 million barrels a day, primarily in Europe, distributes refined products in 65 countries, and manufactures commodity and specialty chemicals. At year-end, its gross installed renewable power generation capacity was 26 gigawatts.

NextEra Energy's regulated utility, Florida Power & Light, is the largest rate-regulated utility in Florida. The utility distributes power to over 6 million customer accounts in Florida and owns 36 gigawatts of generation. FP&L contributes roughly 70% of NextEra's consolidated operating earnings. NextEra Energy Resources, the renewable energy segment, generates and sells power throughout the United States and Canada with nearly 40 GW of generation capacity, including natural gas, nuclear, wind, and solar.

Founded in Germany in 1972 by former IBM employees, SAP is the world’s largest provider of enterprise application software. Known as the leader in enterprise resource planning software, SAP’s portfolio also includes software for supply chain management, procurement, travel and expense management, and customer relationship management, among others. The company operates in more than 180 countries and has more than 400,000 customers, approximately 80% of which are small to medium-size enterprises.

Boeing is a major aerospace and defense firm operating in three segments: commercial airplanes; defense, space, and security; and global services. Boeing's commercial airplanes segment competes with Airbus in the production of aircraft that can carry more than 130 passengers. Boeing's defense, space, and security segment competes with defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to create military aircraft, satellites, and weaponry. Global services provides aftermarket support to airlines.

CrowdStrike is a cloud-based cybersecurity company specializing in next-generation security verticals such as endpoint, cloud workload, identity, and security operations. CrowdStrike’s primary offering is its Falcon platform that offers a proverbial single pane of glass for an enterprise to detect and respond to security threats attacking its IT infrastructure. The Texas-based firm was founded in 2011 and went public in 2019.

Airbus is a global aerospace and defense firm that designs, develops, and manufactures commercial and military jets and helicopters, as well as space launch vehicles and satellites. The company operates three divisions: commercial, defense and space, and helicopters. Commercial offers multiple configurations of aircraft ranging from the narrow-body (120-200 seats) A220 and A320 series to the much larger A330 and A350 wide-body models. The defense and space segment supplies governments with military hardware, including transport aircraft, aerial tankers, and the Eurofighter Typhoon multirole jet. The helicopter division manufactures turbine helicopters for the civil and public markets.

Iberdrola is one of the largest utilities in the world with electric utility operations in nearly 40 countries. The company has a 57-gigawatt portfolio of hydro, wind, natural gas, and nuclear power plants. It is one of the largest owners of wind farms in the world, representing about 40% of its portfolio. Although the company has recently developed or acquired distribution and power generation assets in other geographic areas, Spain is still home to more than half of its power generation capacity. Iberdrola also owns and operates electricity and distribution networks in Spain, the UK, Brazil, and the US.

AppLovin is a vertically integrated advertising technology company that acts as a demand-side platform for advertisers, a supply-side platform for publishers, and an exchange facilitating transactions between the two. About 80% of AppLovin’s revenue comes from the DSP, AppDiscovery, while the remainder comes from the SSP, Max. AppLovin’s primary tool for future growth is AXON 2, which is an ad optimizer operating within the DSP that allows advertisers to place ads according to specified return thresholds.

Safran is a key player in the global commercial and military aerospace propulsion and equipment sectors. The group has three reportable segments: aerospace propulsion (commercial and military aircraft engines and spare parts); aircraft equipment, defense, and aerosystems (diversified business supplying components ranging from landing gear to avionics); and aircraft interiors (seats, cabins, and in-flight entertainment systems). Safran is a partner to the CFM joint venture with GE Aviation, which produces narrow-body engines.

Rolls-Royce operates three core business segments: civil aerospace, power systems, and defense. The civil aerospace segment builds engines powering wide-body aircraft, regional and business jets, and offers aftermarket services. Twenty years ago, the firm pioneered full-service flight hour contracts with the TotalCare package. Power systems provides power solutions to multiple end markets (defense, agriculture, marine, and power generation) while the defense business provides military, ground vehicle and naval propulsion solutions.

Shopify offers an e-commerce platform primarily to small and medium-size businesses. The firm has two segments. The subscription solutions segment allows Shopify merchants to conduct e-commerce on a variety of platforms, including the company’s website, physical stores, pop-up stores, kiosks, social networks (Facebook), and Amazon. The merchant solutions segment offers add-on products for the platform that facilitate e-commerce and include Shopify Payments, Shopify Shipping, and Shopify Capital.

CNOOC is China's main offshore oil and gas exploration and production company. Through its parent company, it has exclusive rights to partner with foreign companies in offshore China projects. Net production for 2024 reached 726.8 million barrels of oil equivalent (78.0% oil), and year-end proven reserves were 7.27 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Assets outside China make up around 32.2% of production.

ConocoPhillips is a US-based independent exploration and production firm. Its operations are primarily in Alaska and the Lower 48, with footprints in Canada, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. It also has substantial integrated LNG production and marketing activities across geographies.

China Shenhua Energy Co Ltd is a globally integrated coal-based energy company, mainly engaging in business segments: Coal, Power generation, Shipping, railway, port, and Coal chemical. Focusing on its core coal mining operation, China Shenhua leverages its self-developed transportation and sales network as well as downstream power plants, coal-to-chemicals facilities, and new energy projects to achieve cross-sector and cross-industry integrated development and operation.

Salesforce provides enterprise cloud computing solutions. The company offers customer relationship management technology that brings companies and customers together. Its Customer 360 platform helps the group deliver a single source of truth, connecting customer data across systems, apps, and devices to help companies sell, service, market, and conduct commerce. It also offers Service Cloud for customer support, Marketing Cloud for digital marketing campaigns, Commerce Cloud as an e-commerce engine, the Salesforce Platform, which allows enterprises to build applications, and other solutions, such as MuleSoft for data integration.

S&P Global provides data and benchmarks to capital and commodity market participants. Its ratings business is the largest credit rating agency in the world and S&P's largest segment by profitability. S&P's largest segment by revenue is market intelligence, which provides desktop, data and advisory solutions, enterprise solutions, and credit/risk solutions mostly in the financial-services industry. S&P's other segments include energy (formerly commodity insights, this segment includes Platts and other data), mobility (Carfax), and indexes. S&P plans to spin off mobility in 2026.

Lockheed Martin is the world's largest defense contractor and has dominated the Western market for high-end fighter aircraft since it won the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program in 2001. Aeronautics is Lockheed’s largest segment, which derives upward of two-thirds of its revenue from the F-35. Lockheed’s remaining segments are rotary and mission systems, mainly encompassing the Sikorsky helicopter business; missiles and fire control, which creates missiles and missile defense systems; and space systems, which produces satellites and receives equity income from the United Launch Alliance joint venture.

Enel is a diversified energy company domiciled in Italy. Operations are concentrated in Italy, Spain, and Latin America. The firm's primary activities are electric generation, electric networks, and gas and electricity marketing. Around 35% of the company's EBITDA is derived from its regulated networks, the rest is from generation and supply. Enel is a giant in global power generation with 81 gigawatts of capacity, of which 56 GW is renewables, including a large share of hydro.

Cadence Design Systems is a provider of electronic design automation software, intellectual property, and system design and analysis products. EDA software automates and aids in the chip design process, enhancing design accuracy, productivity, and complexity in a full-flow end-to-end solution. Cadence offers a portfolio of design IP, as well as system design and analysis products, which enables system-level analysis and verification solutions.

Fortinet is a platform-based cybersecurity vendor with product offerings covering network security, cloud security, zero-trust access, and security operations. The firm derives a majority of its revenue through sales of its subscriptions and support-based business. The California-based firm has more than 800,000 customers across the world.

Southern is one of the largest utilities in the US. The company serves 9 million customers with vertically integrated electric utilities in three states and natural gas distribution utilities in four states. It owns 44 gigawatts of rate-regulated generating capacity, primarily for serving customers in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Subsidiary Southern Power owns 13 gigawatts of natural gas generation and renewable energy across the US and sells the electricity primarily under long-term contracts.

Mitsubishi Corp. is Japan’s largest general trading house, or sogo shosha, a type of conglomerate unique to Japan. Its core role is that of a trading intermediary in a variety of industrial sectors, including resources businesses like energy and metals as well as non-resources businesses, both industrial ones like automotive and non-industrial ones like food, healthcare, and retail. In addition to acting as a trading intermediary (including midstream processing functions to convert inputs into final products), Mitsubishi also participates in upstream production businesses and downstream distribution businesses.

Petrobras is a Brazil-based integrated energy company controlled by the Brazilian government. The company focuses on exploration and production of oil and gas in Brazilian offshore fields. Production in 2024 was 2.7 million barrels of oil equivalent a day (80% oil production), and reserves stood at 11.4 billion boe (85% oil). At end-2024, Petrobras operated 10 refineries in Brazil with capacity of 1.8 million barrels a day and distributes refined products and natural gas throughout Brazil.

BP is an integrated oil and gas company that explores for, produces, and refines oil around the world. In 2024, it produced 1.2 million barrels of liquids and 6.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. At the end of 2024, reserves stood at 6.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent, 59% of which are liquids. The company operates refineries with a capacity of 1.6 million barrels of oil per day.

Constellation Energy Corp producer of carbon-free energy and a supplier of energy products and services. The company offers generating capacity that includes nuclear, wind, solar, natural gas, and hydroelectric assets. It sells electricity, natural gas, and other energy-related products and sustainable solutions to various types of customers, including distribution utilities, municipalities, cooperatives, and commercial, industrial, public sector, and residential customers in markets across multiple geographic regions. Its operating segments and reporting units are Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, New York, ERCOT, and Other Power Regions.

China Yangtze Power Co Ltd business activities include hydroelectric power generation, power distribution and sales, overseas power station's operation, management, consultation services, investment, and financing. It has also established its power distribution and sales platforms such as Three Gorges Water Conservancy and Peru LuzdelSur. The company owns the power generation assets of four hydropower plants on the mainstream of the Yangtze River, namely Three Gorges, Gezhouba, Xiluodu, and Xiangjiaba.

Duke Energy is one of the largest US utilities, with regulated utilities in the Carolinas, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, and Kentucky that deliver electricity to more than 8 million customers. Its natural gas utilities serve more than 1.6 million customers.

ServiceNow Inc provides software solutions to structure and automate various business processes via a SaaS delivery model. The company primarily focuses on the IT function for enterprise customers. ServiceNow began with IT service management, expanded within the IT function, and more recently directed its workflow automation logic to functional areas beyond IT, notably customer service, HR service delivery, and security operations. ServiceNow also offers an application development platform as a service.

General Dynamics is a defense contractor and business jet manufacturer. The firm’s segments are aerospace, marine, combat systems, and technologies. General Dynamics' aerospace segment manufactures Gulfstream business jets and operates a global aircraft servicing operation. Combat systems produces land-based combat vehicles such as the M1 Abrams tank and Stryker armored personnel carrier, as well as munitions. The marine segment builds and services nuclear-powered submarines, destroyers, and Navy support ships. The technologies segment contains two main units: an IT business that primarily serves the government market and a mission systems business focusing on electronics that provide command, control, computing, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities to the military.

Synopsys is a provider of electronic design automation software and intellectual property products. EDA software automates and aids in the chip design process, enhancing design accuracy, productivity, and complexity in a full-flow end-to-end solution. Synopsys’ comprehensive portfolio is benefiting from a convergence of semiconductor companies moving up the stack of technologies toward systems-like companies, and systems companies moving down-stack toward in-house chip design. The resulting expansion in EDA customers alongside secular digitalization of various end markets benefits EDA vendors like Synopsys.

Canadian Natural Resources is the largest producer of oil and the second-largest producer of natural gas in Canada. It is principally involved in extracting heavy oils, natural gas, and bitumen through its drilling and mining operations. Bitumen from mining operations is upgraded into synthetic crude oil. Commodities produced are primarily exported to the US via pipeline. The company also has smaller offshore production operations in the North Sea and Africa.

Wiwynn Corp is a Taiwan-based cloud infrastructure provider. The company is a cloud-enabling service company that is engaged in research, development, design, testing, and sales of products, semi-products, peripheral equipment and parts of computer and peripheral equipment, data storage media, electric appliances and media products, information software, export business relating to the business of the company, management consult services, information software services, and data processing services. The company derives revenue from the manufacturing and sale of servers and storage in cloud infrastructure and hyperscale data centers.