Jefferies Financial Group Inc. Sells 277,133 Shares of Brown & Brown, Inc. $BRO

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. decreased its position in shares of Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) by 92.8% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 21,508 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 277,133 shares during the quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc.’s holdings in Brown & Brown were worth $2,017,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in Brown & Brown by 3.8% in the 3rd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,420,814 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $133,258,000 after purchasing an additional 51,959 shares in the last quarter. Tandem Investment Advisors Inc. grew its position in shares of Brown & Brown by 69.7% during the third quarter. Tandem Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 1,385,214 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $129,919,000 after purchasing an additional 569,037 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Brown & Brown by 4.8% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 37,330,892 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $3,501,264,000 after purchasing an additional 1,705,570 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 1.1% in the second quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,166,370 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $461,925,000 after purchasing an additional 46,235 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 43.3% in the third quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 48,600 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $4,558,000 after purchasing an additional 14,678 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.01% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. assumed coverage on Brown & Brown in a research note on Thursday, December 18th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $91.00 price target for the company. Barclays reduced their price objective on Brown & Brown from $82.00 to $80.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Mizuho raised Brown & Brown from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $84.00 to $85.00 in a report on Friday, February 27th. UBS Group reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $81.00 target price (down from $90.00) on shares of Brown & Brown in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Brown & Brown from $85.00 to $78.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and fourteen have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Brown & Brown presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $90.29.

Brown & Brown Trading Down 0.3%

BRO opened at $68.37 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $23.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.37, a P/E/G ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 0.79. Brown & Brown, Inc. has a 12 month low of $65.68 and a 12 month high of $125.68. The company has a current ratio of 1.66, a quick ratio of 1.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $73.89 and a 200 day moving average of $82.07.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, January 26th. The financial services provider reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.91 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $1.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. Brown & Brown had a return on equity of 12.93% and a net margin of 17.84%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 35.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.86 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Brown & Brown, Inc. will post 4.18 EPS for the current year.

Brown & Brown Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, February 11th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, February 4th were given a dividend of $0.165 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 4th. This represents a $0.66 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.0%. Brown & Brown’s payout ratio is currently 20.63%.

Brown & Brown Company Profile

Brown & Brown, Inc (NYSE: BRO) is a professional insurance brokerage and risk advisory firm that provides a broad range of property and casualty, employee benefits, personal risk, and specialty insurance products. The company works with commercial, public sector and individual clients to design and place insurance programs, manage claims and loss control, and deliver risk management consulting. Its services also include wholesale brokerage, program administration and other specialty distribution solutions that connect carriers and intermediaries to niche markets.

Brown & Brown operates through a decentralized model of operating units and subsidiaries, enabling local client service with the scale to access national and specialty markets.