Empire (TSE:EMP.A) Price Target Raised to C$47.00

Empire (TSE:EMP.A) had its price objective upped by Scotiabank from C$44.00 to C$47.00 in a research note published on Friday,BayStreet.CA reports.

Several other brokerages also recently commented on EMP.A. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Empire from C$43.00 to C$44.00 in a research note on Monday, December 2nd. Desjardins raised their price objective on shares of Empire from C$44.00 to C$47.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. TD Securities upped their target price on shares of Empire from C$44.00 to C$48.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday. CIBC raised their price target on shares of Empire from C$40.00 to C$47.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 13th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on shares of Empire from C$42.00 to C$46.00 in a report on Tuesday, November 12th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Empire has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of C$48.57.

Empire Trading Down 1.3 %

TSE:EMP.A opened at C$44.69 on Friday. The company has a market cap of C$6.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.31, a P/E/G ratio of 16.20 and a beta of 0.48. Empire has a 1 year low of C$31.45 and a 1 year high of C$46.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 135.51, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.29. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is C$41.44 and its two-hundred day moving average price is C$37.84.

Empire Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 31st. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 31st were issued a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.79%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, October 15th. Empire’s payout ratio is 29.20%.

Insider Activity

In other Empire news, Senior Officer Pierre St-Laurent sold 4,850 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of C$41.21, for a total transaction of C$199,868.50. Also, Senior Officer Douglas Bigler Nathanson sold 3,658 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$40.26, for a total transaction of C$147,252.79. Corporate insiders own 2.18% of the company’s stock.

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.