Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A) has been assigned an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the six ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and three have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is C$52.83.

EMP.A has been the subject of several research reports. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of 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 reduced their target price on shares of Empire from C$57.00 to C$52.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, December 12th. National Bank Financial decreased their price target on shares of Empire from C$58.00 to C$54.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 12th. TD Securities lowered their price target on Empire from C$58.00 to C$50.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Friday, December 12th. Finally, Desjardins dropped their price objective on Empire from C$60.00 to C$53.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, December 12th.

Empire Stock Down 0.2%

TSE:EMP.A opened at C$48.87 on Friday. The company has a market cap of C$11.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 72.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 16.20 and a beta of 0.01. Empire has a twelve month low of C$43.81 and a twelve month high of C$58.32. 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 fifty day simple moving average of C$47.77 and a 200-day simple moving average of C$48.78.

Empire (TSE:EMP.A) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 12th. The company reported C$0.72 EPS for the quarter. The firm had revenue of C$7.89 billion for the quarter. Empire had a net margin of 2.18% and a return on equity of 12.94%. Analysts anticipate that Empire will post 2.9581227 EPS for the current year.

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.