shares in empire co rose in early trading thursday after the company said it remains on track to achieve its threeyear strategic targets despite expecting lower growth rates and earnings in the year at 1009 am et shares were up 5 at c3849 the canadian conglomerate engaged mostly in food retail and corporate investments said project horizon its initiative focused on core business expansion and ecommerce acceleration which began last quarter remains on track to deliver the 500 million canadian dollar us3951 million in earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortization over the next three years however the company noted that samestore sales and net earnings are expected to be lower in the year due to positive effects of the pandemic that boosted the metrics in the prior year in the period ended oct 31 the early effects of the strategy have been positive and have helped boost earnings per share in the second quarter to c066 from c060 a year earlier net earnings were c1754 million up from c1614 million a year ago while margins improved to 253 from 251 sales also were higher at c732 billion compared with c698 billion but the company noted that on a samestore store basis sales excluding fuel fell 13 from elevated highs of the prior year period looking ahead the company said it expects samestore sales will continue to reduce for the remainder of the fiscal year but its margins will continue to benefit from project horizon additionally the company said it expects net earnings per share in the year to fall by c025 and c030 as a result of increasing costs in montreal and calgary as well as the additional store pick ecommerce locations despite this empire said it continues to expect to achieve its threeyear project horizon targets the company expects that fiscal 2022 will reflect the highest net earnings dilution for the voila program as the toronto site is expected to begin to reflect positive ebitda results towards the end of its third year of operations it said