Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) Issues Quarterly Earnings Results

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

Brown & Brown Trading Down 0.2 %

Shares of BRO traded down $0.16 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $81.97. 250,729 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,328,381. The business has a fifty day moving average of $84.30 and a 200-day moving average of $77.02. The firm has a market capitalization of $23.39 billion, a PE ratio of 25.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 0.78. The company has a current ratio of 1.97, a quick ratio of 1.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52. Brown & Brown has a 1-year low of $61.71 and a 1-year high of $87.99.

Brown & Brown Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 6th will be paid a dividend of $0.13 per share. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.63%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 3rd. Brown & Brown’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 16.00%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BRO has been the topic of a number of research reports. Bank of America cut Brown & Brown from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $80.00 to $86.00 in a research report on Wednesday, March 13th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on Brown & Brown from $84.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Raymond James boosted their price objective on Brown & Brown from $90.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on Brown & Brown from $75.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Brown & Brown from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $84.00 to $83.00 in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $87.10.

Insider Activity at Brown & Brown

In related news, Chairman Hyatt J. Brown sold 144,323 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.96, for a total value of $12,406,005.08. Following the completion of the sale, the chairman now owns 37,460,605 shares in the company, valued at $3,220,113,605.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 17.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.