Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) Lifted to “Buy” at StockNews.com

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

Other equities analysts also recently issued research reports about the company. Bank of America raised Brown & Brown from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and boosted their target price for the company from $91.00 to $101.00 in a research report on Wednesday, May 22nd. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on Brown & Brown from $95.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. UBS Group boosted their target price on Brown & Brown from $91.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 9th. Raymond James upped their price objective on Brown & Brown from $95.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Truist Financial upped their price objective on Brown & Brown from $104.00 to $112.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Brown & Brown has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $97.40.

Brown & Brown Stock Performance

NYSE:BRO opened at $99.17 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.56, a current ratio of 2.35 and a quick ratio of 2.35. Brown & Brown has a 1 year low of $66.73 and a 1 year high of $99.26. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $91.28 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $85.63. The company has a market cap of $28.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.51, a PEG ratio of 2.47 and a beta of 0.82.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last released its earnings results on Monday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.88 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $1.18 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.14 billion. Brown & Brown had a return on equity of 17.00% and a net margin of 21.95%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.68 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Brown & Brown will post 3.67 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Brown & Brown Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, August 14th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, August 7th will be issued a $0.13 dividend. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.52%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, August 7th. Brown & Brown’s dividend payout ratio is 16.00%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Brown & Brown news, EVP Julie Turpin sold 3,350 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, June 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $89.92, for a total value of $301,232.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 23,597 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,121,842.24. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Company insiders own 17.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Brown & Brown

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BRO. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Brown & Brown during the 4th quarter worth $217,663,000. Congress Asset Management Co. MA purchased a new stake in shares of Brown & Brown during the 4th quarter worth $82,445,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its stake in shares of Brown & Brown by 76.2% during the 4th quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 2,000,227 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $142,236,000 after purchasing an additional 865,082 shares during the last quarter. Confluence Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Brown & Brown during the 1st quarter worth $49,598,000. Finally, Allianz Asset Management GmbH lifted its stake in shares of Brown & Brown by 339.1% during the 4th quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 648,550 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $46,118,000 after purchasing an additional 500,847 shares during the last quarter. 71.01% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other 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.