The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that National Bank Financial analyst Vishal Shreedhar has reaffirmed his "outperform" recommendation for Empire. The Globe's David Leeder writes in the Eye On Equities column that Mr. Shreedhar gave his share target a $3 boost to $41. Analysts on average target the shares at $41.31. Mr. Shreedhar says in a note: "With Project Horizon now complete, management will focus on a broad agenda of improvement initiatives (store renovation/expansion including discount expansion, promotional effectiveness/data analytics, private label, and sourcing/supply chain efficiencies, etc.). Empire believes that supplier requests for price increases have peaked in Q3/F23 (magnitude and volume). So far, Q1/F24 same-store sales growth is showing gradual improvement vs. Q4/F23. EMP established a long-term financial framework which contemplates 8-11 per cent in EPS growth driven by earnings growth and share repurchases ($400-million planned for F2024 vs. $350-million in F2023). Comparable e-commerce sales declined 13.5 per cent year-over-year, adj. for an extra week last year. We expect gradual improvement in the e-commerce business which represented an EPS drain of 28 cents in F2023."