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

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

Separately, Scotiabank cut shares of Empire from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and set a C$52.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Thursday, April 9th.

Empire Trading Up 0.7%

Shares of EMP.A opened at C$48.82 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of C$11.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 72.87, a PEG ratio of 16.20 and a beta of -0.20. The company has a quick ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 135.51. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of C$47.87 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of C$48.18. Empire has a twelve month low of C$43.81 and a twelve month high of C$58.32.

Empire (TSE:EMP.A) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, March 12th. The company reported C$0.72 EPS for the quarter. The company 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%. On average, research analysts anticipate that Empire will post 2.9581227 EPS for the current year.

Empire Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 30th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 30th were given a $0.22 dividend. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, April 15th. Empire’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 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.