This article was originally published on SGX's investor education portal, My Gateway, and is republished with permission.
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Share buybacks refer to share issuer repurchasing some of their outstanding shares from shareholders through open market transactions. Once the shares are bought back, they will be converted into treasury shares, which means they are no longer categorised as shares outstanding. Other motivations for share buybacks include companies moving to align stock valuations with balance sheet objectives.
SIA has bought back S$36.1 million worth of shares since July 2016. File photoIn the month of August 2016, there were a total of 24,876,600 shares repurchased by 37 stocks, with a total consideration of S$63,944,167.54. Buybacks in August 2016 have taken the total share buyback consideration for the 2016 year through to the end of July to S$679 million. The five stocks with the largest buyback consideration value in August were Singapore Airlines, Olam International, DBS Group Holdings, Wilmar International and SIA Engineering Company.
Buyback consideration in August 2016 was down 88% from the $544 million in buyback consideration reported for August 2015 and down 10% from the S$71 million reported for July 2016. The decline from August 2015 buyback activity coincided with a volatile month where the STI index declined 8.1% for the month of August 2015.
Share buyback information can be found on the company disclosure page on the SGX website, using the Announcement category and sub-category of Share Buy Back-On Market (click here).
The table below summarises the buyback considerations in August 2016. The table is sort by the value of the total consideration amount, which collates the amount of shares purchased and the purchasing price of the shares. The date of the relevant share buyback mandate is also provided, in addition to the amount of shares authorised to be bought back under the mandate. The total number of shares purchased under the mandate and the percentage of the companies that issued shares that have been repurchased under the mandate are also provided.
| Stock | Start date of buyback mandate | No. of shares purchased in Aug 2016 | Total consideration ($) | Cumulative no. of shares purchased to end-Aug 2016 |
| SIA | 29/07/2016 | 3,381,500 | 36.1 m | 3,481,500 |
| Olam | 25/04/2016 | 6,458,000 | 12.8 m | 35,018,500 |
| DBS | 28/04/2016 | 300,000 | 4.5 m | 300,000 |
| Wilmar | 28/04/2016 | 737,100 | 2.3 m | 4,197,900 |
| SIA Engineering | 22/07/2016 | 296,900 | 1.1 m | 404,500 |
| OUE | 21/04/2016 | 618,000 | 968,680 | 618,000 |
| Sembcorp Industries | 19/04/2016 | 350,000 | 952,670 | 950,000 |
| Hi-P | 28/04/2016 | 1,433,900 | 593,723 | 1,599,200 |
| Soup Restaurant | 29/04/2016 | 2,545,800 | 518,922 | 2,879,400 |
| Valuetronics | 15/07/2016 | 980,400 | 518,587 | 980,400 |
| Oxley | 28/10/2016 | 1,150,000 | 468,049 | 19,889,000 |
| OCBC | 22/04/2016 | 50,000 | 434,073 | 6,450,000 |
| SembCorp Marine | 18/04/2016 | 240,000 | 334,313 | 656,300 |
| iFAST Corp | 08/04/2016 | 352,100 | 330,300 | 1,437,600 |
| HUPsteel | 27/10/2015 | 475,700 | 269,252 | 250,000 |
| Straco | 29/04/2016 | 269,800 | 205,481 | 269,800 |
The above is a shorter version of the full table found on My Gateway.