Raymond James Raises Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) Price Target to $95.00

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) had its price target upped by Raymond James from $90.00 to $95.00 in a report published on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an outperform rating on the financial services provider’s stock.

Several other equities analysts have also recently commented on the company. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Brown & Brown from $72.00 to $81.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price target on Brown & Brown from $70.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an underperform rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Truist Financial upped their price target on Brown & Brown from $85.00 to $92.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. Bank of America cut Brown & Brown from a neutral rating to an underperform rating and upped their price target for the company from $80.00 to $86.00 in a report on Wednesday, March 13th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised 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 assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $84.90.

Brown & Brown Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:BRO opened at $87.54 on Tuesday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $82.63 and a 200 day moving average price of $75.56. Brown & Brown has a twelve month low of $55.99 and a twelve month high of $87.99. The company has a market cap of $24.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.61, a PEG ratio of 2.91 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 announced its earnings results on Tuesday, January 23rd. The financial services provider reported $0.58 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.53 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $1.03 billion during the quarter. Brown & Brown had a return on equity of 15.46% and a net margin of 20.44%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.50 EPS. Research analysts predict that Brown & Brown will post 3.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Brown & Brown Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Activity at Brown & Brown

In related news, Chairman Hyatt J. Brown sold 144,323 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.96, for a total transaction of $12,406,005.08. Following the completion of the sale, the chairman now directly owns 37,460,605 shares of the company’s stock, 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 the SEC website. Insiders own 17.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Guggenheim Capital LLC boosted its position in shares of Brown & Brown by 142.7% in the 2nd quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 25,783 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,775,000 after purchasing an additional 15,159 shares during the last quarter. Patton Fund Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Brown & Brown in the 4th quarter worth $4,765,000. Whittier Trust Co. boosted its position in shares of Brown & Brown by 12.1% in the 4th quarter. Whittier Trust Co. now owns 162,226 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $11,536,000 after purchasing an additional 17,479 shares during the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank boosted its position in shares of Brown & Brown by 28.7% in the 3rd quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 277,331 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $19,369,000 after purchasing an additional 61,800 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Comerica Bank bought a new position in shares of Brown & Brown in the 2nd quarter worth $328,020,000. 71.01% of the stock is currently owned by 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.