3,060,931 Shares in Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) Acquired by Norges Bank

Norges Bank acquired a new position in Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 3,060,931 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $217,663,000. Norges Bank owned about 1.08% of Brown & Brown as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in BRO. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in Brown & Brown by 1,861.7% during 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 buying an additional 769,051 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its position in shares of Brown & Brown by 81.9% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,021,668 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $71,353,000 after acquiring an additional 460,068 shares during the period. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Brown & Brown during the 4th quarter valued at $27,805,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Brown & Brown by 2.4% during the 4th quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 12,325,905 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $876,495,000 after acquiring an additional 294,143 shares during the period. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada grew its position in shares of Brown & Brown by 15.9% during the 3rd quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 1,715,645 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $119,821,000 after acquiring an additional 235,001 shares during the period. 71.01% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on BRO. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of Brown & Brown from $84.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of Brown & Brown from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 20th. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Brown & Brown from $89.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 16th. Bank of America raised shares of Brown & Brown from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $91.00 to $101.00 in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on shares of Brown & Brown from $80.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, May 3rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $88.80.

Insider Activity at Brown & Brown

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

Brown & Brown Price Performance

Brown & Brown stock opened at $91.16 on Thursday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $84.99 and its 200-day simple moving average is $79.33. The company has a market capitalization of $26.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.46 and a beta of 0.79. Brown & Brown, Inc. has a 1 year low of $61.71 and a 1 year high of $91.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.97 and a current ratio of 1.97.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The financial services provider reported $1.14 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.07 by $0.07. 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 analysts’ expectations of $1.22 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.84 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 12.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Brown & Brown, Inc. will post 3.61 earnings per share for the current year.

Brown & Brown Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 6th were paid a $0.13 dividend. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, May 3rd. Brown & Brown’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 16.00%.

Brown & Brown 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.