Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A) Receives C$52.83 Consensus Target Price from Brokerages

Shares of Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the six research firms that are covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is C$52.83.

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Royal Bank Of Canada dropped their price target on Empire from C$61.00 to C$55.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 23rd. Scotiabank downgraded Empire from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and set a C$52.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Thursday, April 9th.

Empire Stock Performance

Shares of EMP.A opened at C$46.92 on Monday. The company has a market cap of C$10.63 billion, a PE ratio of 70.03, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 16.20 and a beta of -0.04. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 135.51. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of C$48.27 and a 200-day moving average price of C$48.38. Empire has a 12-month low of C$43.81 and a 12-month high of C$58.32.

Empire (TSE:EMP.A) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 12th. The company reported C$0.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The firm had revenue of C$7.89 billion during the quarter. Empire had a return on equity of 12.94% and a net margin of 2.18%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Empire will post 2.9581227 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Empire Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 30th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 30th were given a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, April 15th. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.9%. Empire’s payout ratio is presently 128.36%.

About Empire

Empire Co Ltd key businesses are food retailing, investments, and other operations. The food retailing division operates through Empire’s subsidiary Sobeys and represents nearly all of the company’s income. This segment owns, affiliates, or franchises more than 1,500 stores in 10 provinces, under retail banners including Sobeys, Safeway, IGA, Foodland, FreshCo, Thrifty Foods, Lawton’s Drug Stores, and multiple retail fuel locations. The company’s investment and other operations segment include the investment in Crombie REIT, which is an open-ended Canadian real estate investment trust, as well as the Genstar Development Partnership.