01:20 PM EST, 01/17/2025 (MT Newswires) -- National Bank Financial hosted Empire management in Toronto, Ontario.

Key discussion topics included the consumer backdrop, capital allocation priorities, real estate strategy, loyalty/data, e-commerce/Voia, among others.

"Overall, we found EMP's presentation to largely align with comments made during the Q2/F25 conference call," notes analyst Vishal Shreedhar. Empire believes it can successfully deliver on its financial framework, aiming for 8-11% annual EPS growth over the medium term (~50% driven by stock buybacks).

Looking forward, National believes Empire has opportunity related to ongoing improvement initiatives, inexpensive valuation and easy compares, partly offset by structural differences versus peers.

"We consider the value gap versus peers to be noteworthy; however, we believe the gap will remain pronounced until EMP delivers similar growth versus peers (EMP has started showing signs of improved growth)."

Maintain Sector Perform; price target is $49.

Price: 42.50, Change: +0.15, Percent Change: +0.35