Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) Announces Dividend Increase – $0.15 Per Share

Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, October 23rd, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 6th will be paid a dividend of 0.15 per share by the financial services provider on Wednesday, November 13th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.57%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 6th. This is a boost from Brown & Brown’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13.

Brown & Brown has a payout ratio of 12.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Brown & Brown to earn $4.05 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.52 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 12.8%.

Brown & Brown Stock Performance

BRO opened at $105.45 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $30.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.73, a PEG ratio of 2.40 and a beta of 0.82. The company has a fifty day moving average of $104.26 and a 200 day moving average of $96.28. Brown & Brown has a fifty-two week low of $69.13 and a fifty-two week high of $107.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.73 and a current ratio of 1.73.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The financial services provider reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.88 by $0.03. Brown & Brown had a net margin of 22.65% and a return on equity of 17.12%. The business had revenue of $1.19 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.16 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.71 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Brown & Brown will post 3.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently issued reports on BRO. Barclays began coverage on shares of Brown & Brown in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued an “equal weight” rating and a $108.00 target price for the company. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Brown & Brown from $112.00 to $114.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 10th. Bank of America lifted their price objective on shares of Brown & Brown from $108.00 to $117.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, October 10th. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of Brown & Brown from $91.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 9th. Finally, Argus began coverage on shares of Brown & Brown in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. They set a “buy” rating and a $120.00 target price on the stock. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Brown & Brown has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $106.50.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Brown & Brown news, Chairman Hyatt J. Brown sold 134,640 shares of Brown & Brown stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $104.51, for a total transaction of $14,071,226.40. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other Brown & Brown news, Chairman Hyatt J. Brown sold 134,640 shares of Brown & Brown stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $104.51, for a total transaction of $14,071,226.40. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO R. Andrew Watts sold 2,500 shares of Brown & Brown stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.32, for a total value of $250,800.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 88,445 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,872,802.40. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 16.43% of the stock is currently owned by 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.