Belgian-Dutch company Ahold Delhaize has bought back 627,807 common shares in the period between 27 February and 3 March, as part of the €1 billion share buyback programme originally announced on 7 December of last year.
The programme will enable Ahold Delhaize to maintain ‘a balanced approach between funding growth in key channels and [return] excess liquidity to shareholders’, part of the group’s Better Together strategy.
The purpose of the share buyback programme is to reduce the capital of Ahold Delhaize, by canceling all or part of the common shares acquired through the programme.
These most recent shares were repurchased at an average price of €20.18 per share, for a total of €12.7 million. To date, 9,981, shares have been repurchased, equating to €200 million.
Material Change
The grocery retail company also announced that it will continue the 'brokerage-led' programme with one material change.
'The intermediary executing the buyback program has guaranteed that the final price per share will be the arithmetic average of the daily volume weighted average prices (VWAP) over the period of acquisition of the shares less an agreed discount,' the company said in a statement.
'The intermediary may in connection therewith enter into transactions to hedge its exposure under the share buyback agreement.'
The company said that it will continue to provide updates on the progress of the programme, with respect to the brokerage-led part of the mandate.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Karen Henderson. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
