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S’pore: Share buybacks jumped 150% on-year to $1 billion, says SGX

S’pore: Share buybacks jumped 150% on-year to $1 billion, says SGX
S’pore: Share buybacks jumped 150% on-year to $1 billion, says SGX

As many as 46 primary-listed firms reportedly bought back shares worth SGD 586 million ($410 million) in this year’s third quarter, according to Singapore Exchange (SGX)

The total buyback consideration in the nine months to September this year reached just above SGD 1.5 billion ($1 billion), which is nearly 150% higher than the same period last year at SGD 609 million ($426 million) in September 2021.

Although the quarter’s total consideration was lower than the previous quarter’s SGD 657 million ($459.7 million), it was more than the figure recorded in the July-September quarter of 2021, which was SGD 241 million ($168.6 million).

Buybacks in this quarter were conducted with an average share price of SGD 0.382 ($0.27).

July recorded the lowest monthly buyback consideration for primary-listed stocks year-on-year, while August saw the highest buyback since March 2020.

The Straits Times Index (STI) recorded a 0.9% price gain in the quarter, with total returns of 2.4% in dividends boost. Also, 41% of trading sessions logged STI annualized 30-day volatility of over 10%, which is a decline from 89% in the second quarter.

Wilmar International recorded the largest buyback consideration, having bought 34.6 million shares which amounted to SGD 140.5 million ($98 million), with the average price that the group paid per share being SGD 4.065 ($2.84).

Following the agribusiness were Keppel Corporation and OCBC, who bought back 19 million securities worth SGD 136.2 million ($95 million) and 8 million shares worth SGD 97.2 million ($68 million) respectively, with average prices per share of SGD 7.159 ($5) and SGD 12.148 ($8.50).

The top buyback consideration contributors among non-STI stocks include Yangzijiang Financial Holding, YF8, The Hour Glass, and AGS.

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding’s financial spin-off purchased 5.2% of its issued shares, except the treasury shares, with the average price of each share coming at SGD 0.382 ($0.27) by September end. Meanwhile, The Hour Glass purchased 14 million shares in the third quarter, with an average per share price of SGD 2.23 ($1.56).

Source credit: https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/share-buybacks-hit-s586m-in-q3-pushing-total-9-month-consideration-up-150-on-year

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Priyanka Nair

Priyanka Ravi Nair is an MBA (Finance) graduate who started her journey in content writing more than 2 years ago and there has been no looking back ever since. She aims to explore several aspects in the field of content writing and is currently writing news articles for Theresearchprocess on topics ranging from business and finance to technology and automobile.