April 19, 2024
Samsung
Samsung likely to buy back shares worth W13tr
[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics is likely to implement a massive share buy-back drive worth 13 trillion won (US$11.46 billion) after announcing its third-quarter earnings next week, industry watchers said on Oct. 23.
The company is also expected to announce detailed plans on buy-backs and dividends for 2018-2020 as well, they added.
The outlook came as the Korean tech giant said last year it plans to allocate around 50 percent of its free-cash flow generated in 2016 and 2017 to bolstering the value of its shares to benefit shareholders.
Samsung’s expenditure on dividends and buy-back programs accounted for 49.7 percent of its net profit last year, industry data showed, up from 39.2 percent posted a year earlier.
Of the net profit of 22.4 trillion won (US$19.70 billion) generated last year, Samsung spent 2.9 trillion won on dividends and 7.1 trillion won on share buy-backs.
Industry watchers said if Samsung maintains the ratio this year as well, the amount allocated for shareholders would reach a whopping 20 trillion won as securities firms are estimating a net profit of 41 trillion won.
As Samsung already spent around 6 trillion won on dividends and buy-backs in the first half of 2017, the company needs to spend some 13 trillion won over the second half to keep the ratio at around 50 percent, under the assumption its annual net profit meets the expectation.
By Alex Lee and newswires alexlee@heraldcorp.com)
