Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) Downgraded by StockNews.com to “Hold”

StockNews.com downgraded shares of Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note published on Wednesday morning.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on BRO. Bank of America downgraded Brown & Brown from a neutral rating to an underperform rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $80.00 to $86.00 in a research report on Wednesday, March 13th. UBS Group boosted their target price on Brown & Brown from $75.00 to $81.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, January 29th. Jefferies Financial Group downgraded Brown & Brown from a buy rating to a hold rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $85.00 to $78.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on Brown & Brown from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Wednesday, March 20th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price objective on Brown & Brown from $89.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, April 16th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Brown & Brown presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $87.30.

Brown & Brown Price Performance

Brown & Brown stock traded up $0.80 on Wednesday, reaching $85.61. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 851,165 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,330,636. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.97 and a current ratio of 1.97. The company has a market cap of $24.42 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.20, a PEG ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 0.79. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $84.20 and its 200 day moving average price is $77.95. Brown & Brown has a twelve month low of $61.71 and a twelve month high of $87.99.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The financial services provider reported $1.14 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.07 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $1.26 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.22 billion. Brown & Brown had a return on equity of 16.43% and a net margin of 21.09%. The business’s revenue was up 12.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.84 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Brown & Brown will post 3.62 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Brown & Brown Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 6th will be issued a $0.13 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 3rd. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.61%. Brown & Brown’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 16.00%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related 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 completion of the transaction, the chairman now directly owns 37,460,605 shares in the company, valued at $3,220,113,605.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Corporate insiders own 16.43% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its stake in Brown & Brown by 86.9% in the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 24,866 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,768,000 after purchasing an additional 11,559 shares in the last quarter. Patton Fund Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Brown & Brown in the fourth quarter valued at $4,765,000. Russell Investments Group Ltd. lifted its stake in shares of Brown & Brown by 55.4% during the 4th quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 358,929 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $25,519,000 after buying an additional 127,903 shares during the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. grew its stake in Brown & Brown by 12.1% in the 4th quarter. Whittier Trust Co. now owns 162,226 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $11,536,000 after buying an additional 17,479 shares during the last quarter. Finally, WCM Investment Management LLC lifted its position in Brown & Brown by 13.4% during the fourth quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC now owns 107,979 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $7,658,000 after acquiring an additional 12,748 shares during the last quarter. 71.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.