| Date of buying | No. of shares bought | Price/share $ | Amount $ | Cumulative shares bought |
| 31-03-2008 | 24,000 | 15.2150 | 365,707 | 2,301,000 (0.19%) |
| 25-03-2008 | 140,000 | 15.0443 | 210,936 | |
| 24-03-2008 | 374,000 | 14.8976 | 5,578,431 | |
| 20-03-2008 | 351,000 | 14.4172 | 5,060,454 | |
| 19-03-2008 | 506,000 | 14.5728 | 7,373,835 | |
| 18-03-2008 | 441,000 | 14.184 | 6,255,163 | |
| 17-03-2008 | 425,000 | 14.0495 | 5,971,057 | |
| 14-03-2008 | 166,000 | 14.3492 | 2,381,963 | |
| Total | 2,427,000 | 13.6784 | 33,197,546 |
SIA's 9-month profit was up 4.4% to S$1.5 billion. Photo: stock.xchng
During the current market downturn, few – if any - companies have bought back as many shares of their own as Singapore Airlines.
SIA started its buyback on Mar 14, and in the space of 2 weeks, spent about $33.2 million buying back its shares.
The buying intensity dropped after a recovery in the stock price last week to above $15, as the above table shows.
When the stock traded at $15.46 recently, DBS Vickers analyst Paul Yong recommended a “buy” on the stock, saying: “SIA is currently trading at about 10x FYE Mar ’08 earnings, which will decline to 9.6x earnings with FY09 soon upon us. This is at the low end of its historical, normalized trading range of 10x-15x.
“In terms of price-to-book, SIA has historically traded at between 1x – 1.5x P/B and with share price currently trading at 1.17x FY08 P/B and 1.06x FY09 P/B, we believe that there is significantly more upside than downside risk to the stock at this level.”
For the 9 months ended Dec 31 ’07, SIA’s net profit inched up 4.4% to S$1.5 billion. Revenue was up 9.6% to S$11.9 billion.
DBS Vickers’ full report, here.
