Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) Sets New 1-Year High Following Analyst Upgrade

Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO)’s share price reached a new 52-week high on Wednesday after Raymond James raised their price target on the stock from $90.00 to $95.00. Raymond James currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Brown & Brown traded as high as $87.42 and last traded at $87.00, with a volume of 64646 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $86.42.

BRO has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Jefferies Financial Group cut Brown & Brown from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $85.00 to $78.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 9th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on Brown & Brown from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 20th. UBS Group raised their price objective on Brown & Brown from $75.00 to $81.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Brown & Brown from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Sunday, March 17th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Brown & Brown from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $84.00 to $83.00 in a report on Monday, January 8th. Two investment 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’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Brown & Brown currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $84.90.

Insider Transactions at Brown & Brown

In other news, Chairman Hyatt J. Brown sold 144,323 shares of Brown & Brown stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were 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 in the company, valued at approximately $3,220,113,605.80. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 17.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of BRO. First Capital Advisors Group LLC. bought a new position in Brown & Brown in the second quarter worth approximately $26,000. West Tower Group LLC bought a new position in Brown & Brown in the second quarter worth approximately $27,000. Fortitude Family Office LLC bought a new position in Brown & Brown in the fourth quarter worth approximately $31,000. Quilter Plc acquired a new position in shares of Brown & Brown during the first quarter worth $438,906,000. Finally, Clear Street Markets LLC increased its position in shares of Brown & Brown by 93.7% during the first quarter. Clear Street Markets LLC now owns 461 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 223 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.01% of the company’s stock.

Brown & Brown Stock Performance

The business has a 50-day moving average price of $82.37 and a 200-day moving average price of $75.46. The firm has a market capitalization of $24.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.61, a P/E/G ratio of 2.89 and a beta of 0.78. The company has a quick ratio of 1.95, a current ratio of 1.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 23rd. The financial services provider reported $0.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.53 by $0.05. Brown & Brown had a return on equity of 15.46% and a net margin of 20.44%. The business had revenue of $1.03 billion for the quarter. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.50 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Brown & Brown, Inc. will post 3.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Brown & Brown Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, February 14th. Investors of record on Friday, February 2nd were given a $0.13 dividend. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.59%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 1st. Brown & Brown’s payout ratio is 16.99%.

Brown & Brown Company Profile

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.