Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A) Receives Consensus Rating of "Hold" from Analysts

Key Points

• Empire Company has a consensus analyst rating of "Hold", based on coverage from six brokerages: four hold ratings and two buy ratings. The average 12-month price target is C$52.83.
• Recent analyst moves were mixed to cautious, with Scotiabank downgrading the stock to sector perform and RBC cutting its price target to C$55.00 while keeping a sector perform rating.
• Empire most recently reported quarterly EPS of C$0.72 on revenue of C$7.89 billion, and it paid a quarterly dividend of $0.22 per share, equal to an annualized yield of 1.9%.

Shares of Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A - Get Free Report) have been given a consensus rating of "Hold" by the six brokerages that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month price target among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is C$52.83.

EMP.A has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Scotiabank lowered shares of Empire from an "outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating and set a C$52.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Thursday, April 9th. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their target price on shares of Empire from C$61.00 to C$55.00 and set a "sector perform" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, January 23rd.

Empire Stock Performance

TSE:EMP.A opened at C$46.54 on Monday. Empire has a 1 year low of C$43.81 and a 1 year high of C$58.32. The firm's fifty day simple moving average is C$48.54 and its 200 day simple moving average is C$48.47. 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 firm has a market capitalization of C$10.55 billion, a PE ratio of 69.46, a PEG ratio of 16.20 and a beta of -0.04.

Empire (TSE:EMP.A - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 12th. The company reported C$0.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Empire had a net margin of 2.18% and a return on equity of 12.94%. The business had revenue of C$7.89 billion for the quarter. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Empire will post 2.9581227 EPS for the current 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 paid 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 dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.

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