First Horizon Advisors Inc. Boosts Stake in Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO)

First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its position in shares of Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) by 22.8% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,008 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after buying an additional 187 shares during the quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Brown & Brown were worth $72,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 1,861.7% in the 3rd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 810,359 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $56,595,000 after acquiring an additional 769,051 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 81.9% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,021,668 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $71,353,000 after buying an additional 460,068 shares during the last quarter. Royal Bank of Canada boosted its stake in shares of Brown & Brown by 15.9% during the third quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 1,715,645 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $119,821,000 after buying an additional 235,001 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 145.6% during the third quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 396,141 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $27,666,000 after buying an additional 234,853 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec raised its stake in Brown & Brown by 32.3% during the 3rd quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 544,058 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $37,997,000 after acquiring an additional 132,774 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.01% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have weighed in on BRO. Truist Financial lifted their target price on Brown & Brown from $92.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 24th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of Brown & Brown from $89.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 16th. Jefferies Financial Group cut shares of Brown & Brown from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $85.00 to $78.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 9th. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Brown & Brown from $75.00 to $81.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price objective on Brown & Brown from $80.00 to $82.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Brown & Brown currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $87.30.

Brown & Brown Stock Performance

BRO opened at $85.26 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $84.20 and its 200 day simple moving average is $77.91. The stock has a market cap of $24.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.23, a P/E/G ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 0.79. Brown & Brown, Inc. has a 1-year low of $61.71 and a 1-year high of $87.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a current ratio of 1.97 and a quick ratio of 1.97.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The financial services provider reported $1.14 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.07 by $0.07. Brown & Brown had a return on equity of 16.43% and a net margin of 21.09%. The company had revenue of $1.26 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.22 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.84 earnings per share. Brown & Brown’s revenue was up 12.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Brown & Brown, Inc. will post 3.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Brown & Brown Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 6th will be issued a $0.13 dividend. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.61%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 3rd. Brown & Brown’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 16.00%.

Insider Activity

In related news, Chairman Hyatt J. Brown sold 144,323 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 sale, the chairman now owns 37,460,605 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,220,113,605.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Company insiders own 16.43% of the company’s stock.

Brown & Brown Company Profile

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.