Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) Shares Sold by Greenleaf Trust

Greenleaf Trust lessened its position in shares of Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) by 6.7% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 3,741 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 269 shares during the quarter. Greenleaf Trust’s holdings in Brown & Brown were worth $266,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in BRO. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its position in shares of 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 lifted its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 81.9% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,021,668 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $71,353,000 after purchasing an additional 460,068 shares during the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. boosted its position in Brown & Brown by 1,831.8% during the 3rd quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 397,763 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $27,780,000 after purchasing an additional 377,173 shares during the period. Royal Bank of Canada boosted its position in 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 purchasing an additional 235,001 shares during the period. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. increased its position in Brown & Brown by 145.6% in 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 period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.01% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BRO has been the subject of several analyst reports. Bank of America downgraded shares of Brown & Brown from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $80.00 to $86.00 in a report on Wednesday, March 13th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Brown & Brown from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 20th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price target on shares of Brown & Brown from $75.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on Brown & Brown from $84.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group downgraded Brown & Brown from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $85.00 to $78.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Brown & Brown presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $87.10.

Brown & Brown Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:BRO opened at $82.13 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $23.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.27, a PEG ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 0.78. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a current ratio of 1.97 and a quick ratio of 1.95. Brown & Brown, Inc. has a 12 month low of $60.00 and a 12 month high of $87.99. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $84.30 and its 200 day moving average price is $76.99.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The financial services provider reported $1.14 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.07 by $0.07. 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 quarterly revenue was up 12.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.84 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Brown & Brown, Inc. will post 3.57 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Brown & Brown Dividend Announcement

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 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.63%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 3rd. Brown & Brown’s payout ratio is 16.00%.

Insider Activity

In related news, Chairman Hyatt J. Brown sold 144,323 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.96, for a total value of $12,406,005.08. Following the sale, the chairman now directly owns 37,460,605 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,220,113,605.80. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders own 17.02% of the company’s stock.

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.