A total of 124 listed companies have announced a repurchase of their shares on the open market in the past month, accounting for about one-tenth of companies listed on either the Taiwan Stock Exchange or the GRETAI Securities Market, stock exchange statistics showed.
The companies made the buyback announcements after the Cabinet said on June 28 that it would launch eight measures to boost market sentiment and investor confidence, including encouraging listed companies to buy back shares to boost their share prices.
Based on stock exchange filings from the listed companies in the last 30 days, 67 companies listed on the main bourse, including Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管), said they would act in response to the Cabinet’s policy.
Another 57 firms listed on the GRETAI Securities Market, the over-the-counter market, such as Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) and Etron Technology Inc (鈺創科技), said they would take similar action.
While share prices of these companies surged in the days after their buyback announcements and a Morgan Stanley report last week suggested the TAIEX could gain on such buyback plans, only 11 out of the 124 companies have actually begun their buybacks, stock exchange tallies show.
Chunghwa Picture Tubes, the nation’s third-largest liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel maker, said in a filing on June 30 that it would buy back as many as 410 million shares on the open market, but it did not specify when it would do so or at what price.
Stock exchange data showed that the 11 listed firms who have begun to buy back shares have spent nearly NT$3 billion (US$98.7 million) doing so, with Yuanta Financial Holdings Co (元大金控) leading the way with NT$956 million so far.
Yuanta Financial, owner of the nation’s largest brokerage, said on July 15 that it planned to spend as much as NT$6 billion to buy back 300 million shares at between NT$14 and NT$20 apiece. The buyback began on July 16 and will end today.
State-run Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行) said early last week that it would consider buying back 80 million of its shares for NT$2.5 billion.
The Ministry of Finance has yet to approve the plan, ministry officials said last week.
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