JDW Sugar completes share buyback exercise

JDW Sugar Mills Ltd said on Monday it completed the buyback of two million shares for ultimate cancellation in less than two months of initiating the exercise. The sugarcane processor started purchasing over one-fifth of the company’s free float — which is the shareholding that’s in the hands of public investors as opposed to locked-in shares held by sponsors — in small chunks on Nov 11 at the rate prevailing in the stock market. Speaking to Dawn, JS Global Assistant Vice President Waqas Ghani said the company bought back its shares at a weighted average price of Rs439.44 apiece. The size of the buyback transaction is, therefore, Rs878.9m, he said. “The share buyback indicates that the company likes its own stock enough to purchase it from the general public,” said Mr Ghani. Companies buy back their stocks to either cancel them altogether or hold them as treasury shares. Both moves result in the reduction of the number of outstanding shares available in the open market. The exercise results in higher earnings per share as their total number of shares goes down and break-up values improve.