Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A) Given Consensus Rating of “Hold” by Brokerages

Shares of Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A) have received an average rating of “Hold” from the six research firms that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat 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 1 year price target among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is C$52.83.

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

Empire Stock Performance

TSE EMP.A opened at C$49.98 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of C$11.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 74.60, a PEG ratio of 16.20 and a beta of -0.20. Empire has a twelve month low of C$43.81 and a twelve month high of C$58.32. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of C$47.86 and a 200 day simple moving average of C$48.15. The company has a quick ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 135.51.

Empire (TSE:EMP.A) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 12th. The company reported C$0.72 earnings per share for the quarter. The business 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%. Sell-side analysts expect that Empire will post 2.9581227 EPS for the current year.

Empire Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 30th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 30th were issued a dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.8%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, April 15th. 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.