Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) Releases Earnings Results

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) announced its earnings results on Tuesday. The financial services provider reported $1.14 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.07 by $0.07, Briefing.com reports. Brown & Brown had a net margin of 21.09% and a return on equity of 16.43%. The company had revenue of $1.26 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.22 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.84 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 12.7% on a year-over-year basis.

Brown & Brown Stock Down 1.0 %

Shares of NYSE BRO opened at $82.13 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $23.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.27, a P/E/G ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 0.78. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $84.30 and a 200 day moving average price of $76.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.95 and a current ratio of 1.97. Brown & Brown has a 52-week low of $60.00 and a 52-week high of $87.99.

Brown & Brown Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Investors 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 yield of 0.63%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 3rd. Brown & Brown’s dividend payout ratio is currently 16.00%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Brown & Brown

In other Brown & Brown news, Chairman Hyatt J. Brown sold 144,323 shares of Brown & Brown stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.96, for a total value of $12,406,005.08. Following the transaction, the chairman now owns 37,460,605 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,220,113,605.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Insiders own 17.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have weighed in on BRO. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their target price on shares of Brown & Brown from $75.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Brown & Brown from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $84.00 to $83.00 in a research report on Monday, January 8th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Brown & Brown from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Sunday, March 17th. Jefferies Financial Group cut shares of Brown & Brown from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $85.00 to $78.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Brown & Brown from $75.00 to $81.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, January 29th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $87.10.

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.