Wells Fargo & Company Increases Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) Price Target to $85.00

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

Other equities analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. Bank of America downgraded shares of Brown & Brown from a neutral rating to an underperform rating and upped their price objective for the company from $80.00 to $86.00 in a research note on Wednesday, March 13th. StockNews.com upgraded Brown & Brown from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Sunday, March 17th. Citigroup upped their target price on Brown & Brown from $89.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 16th. UBS Group raised their price target on Brown & Brown from $75.00 to $81.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Brown & Brown from a neutral rating to a buy rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $84.00 to $83.00 in a research note on Monday, January 8th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Brown & Brown currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $87.10.

Brown & Brown Trading Down 1.0 %

NYSE BRO opened at $81.46 on Wednesday. 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 firm has a 50 day moving average of $84.27 and a two-hundred day moving average of $77.17. Brown & Brown has a 52 week low of $61.71 and a 52 week high of $87.99. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.24 billion, a PE ratio of 25.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.23 and a beta of 0.78.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The financial services provider reported $1.14 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.07 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $1.26 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.22 billion. Brown & Brown had a net margin of 21.09% and a return on equity of 16.43%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.84 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Brown & Brown will post 3.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Brown & Brown Announces Dividend

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

Insider Activity

In other Brown & Brown news, Chairman Hyatt J. Brown sold 144,323 shares of the 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 directly owns 37,460,605 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,220,113,605.80. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Company insiders own 17.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Alaska Permanent Fund Corp bought a new position in shares of Brown & Brown in the 1st quarter worth about $36,000. Fortitude Family Office LLC acquired a new position in Brown & Brown in the fourth quarter worth approximately $31,000. First PREMIER Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Brown & Brown during the 1st quarter valued at $40,000. Park Place Capital Corp boosted its stake in shares of Brown & Brown by 166.5% during the 4th quarter. Park Place Capital Corp now owns 509 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $36,000 after acquiring an additional 318 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Livforsakringsbolaget Skandia Omsesidigt grew its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 174.0% in the 4th quarter. Livforsakringsbolaget Skandia Omsesidigt now owns 548 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $39,000 after acquiring an additional 348 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.01% of the company’s stock.

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.