Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) Price Target Increased to $85.00 by Analysts at Wells Fargo & Company

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) had its target price boosted by Wells Fargo & Company from $84.00 to $85.00 in a report issued on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. They currently have an equal weight rating on the financial services provider’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts also recently commented on the company. Raymond James upped their target price on Brown & Brown from $90.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. Citigroup increased their price objective on Brown & Brown from $89.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 16th. UBS Group increased their price objective on Brown & Brown from $75.00 to $81.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. Jefferies Financial Group downgraded Brown & Brown from a buy rating to a hold rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $85.00 to $78.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 9th. Finally, StockNews.com raised Brown & Brown from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Sunday, March 17th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $87.10.

Brown & Brown Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of NYSE BRO opened at $81.45 on Wednesday. Brown & Brown has a 12 month low of $61.71 and a 12 month high of $87.99. The company has a market cap of $23.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.06, a P/E/G ratio of 2.25 and a beta of 0.78. The company has a quick ratio of 1.95, a current ratio of 1.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $84.29 and a 200-day simple moving average of $77.06.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The financial services provider reported $1.14 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.07 by $0.07. Brown & Brown had a return on equity of 16.43% and a net margin of 21.09%. The business had revenue of $1.26 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.22 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.84 earnings per share. Brown & Brown’s revenue was up 12.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Brown & Brown will post 3.61 EPS for the current year.

Brown & Brown Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 6th will be issued a dividend of $0.13 per share. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.64%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 3rd. Brown & Brown’s dividend payout ratio is 16.00%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Chairman Hyatt J. Brown sold 144,323 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.96, for a total transaction of $12,406,005.08. Following the transaction, the chairman now owns 37,460,605 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,220,113,605.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 17.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BRO. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Brown & Brown during the 4th quarter valued at about $217,663,000. Congress Asset Management Co. MA acquired a new position in shares of Brown & Brown during the 4th quarter valued at about $82,445,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its holdings in Brown & Brown by 76.2% in the 4th quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 2,000,227 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $142,236,000 after buying an additional 865,082 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its holdings in Brown & Brown by 1,861.7% in the 3rd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 810,359 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $56,595,000 after buying an additional 769,051 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Confluence Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in Brown & Brown in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $49,598,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.01% of the company’s stock.

About Brown & Brown

Brown & Brown, Inc markets and sells insurance products and services in the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Retail, National Programs, Wholesale Brokerage, and Services. The Retail segment provides property and casualty, employee benefits insurance products, personal insurance products, specialties insurance products, risk management strategies, loss control survey and analysis, consultancy, and claims processing services.