JavaScript is off. Please enable to view full site.

Toyota to spend $3.5 bn on share buy-back

Toyota to spend $3.5 bn on share buy-back

Wednesday, March 26, 2014, 21:00 GMT+7

Toyota is to buy back as much as 1.89 percent of its shares for 360 billion yen ($3.5 billion), raiding a growing corporate cash chest for the first time in five years, the Japanese carmaker said Wednesday.

The world's largest automaker said it will purchase up to 60 million shares over a 10-month period following the next shareholders' meeting in June.

It will cancel half of them, to avoid sparking fears of dilution in future share sales, the company said in a statement.

The other shares will be handed over to a trust that will manage them on behalf of a new foundation to "support efforts to address mobility challenges around the world" such as traffic jams and better use of energy, it said.

The last Toyota share buy-back was in February 2009, a company spokeswoman said, adding it had repurchased 930,000 shares for 2.8 billion yen at the time.

Observers said it was a way for Toyota to invest its large cash pile into its own shares and to increase value.

"The company has improved its business performance greatly thanks to a weaker yen and now has abundant cash," said auto analyst Tatsuya Mizuno.

"By using the cash to buy back its own shares Toyota could show the management's confidence to investors that they are worth pouring cash into."

Toyota shares rose 1.09 percent to 5,621 yen ahead of the announcement on Wednesday.

AFP

More

Read more

;

Photos

VIDEOS

‘Taste of Australia’ gala dinner held in Ho Chi Minh City after 2-year hiatus

Taste of Australia Gala Reception has returned to the Park Hyatt Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City's District 1 after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Vietnamese woman gives unconditional love to hundreds of adopted children

Despite her own immense hardship, she has taken in and cared for hundreds of orphans over the past three decades.

Vietnam’s Mekong Delta celebrates spring with ‘hat boi’ performances

The art form is so popular that it attracts people from all ages in the Mekong Delta

Vietnamese youngster travels back in time with clay miniatures

Each work is a scene caught by Dung and kept in his memories through his journeys across Vietnam

Latest news