Companies buying back shares

MANILA, Philippines - Companies resumed their buy-back sprees Monday as the local stock market went on a tailspin amid lingering uncertainties on the global front.

In separate disclosures to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) yesterday, a number of companies said they repurchased shares from the market when the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index slipped to its lowest level in almost two years last Jan. 11.

The move is aimed at taking advantage of the low share prices.

The Lopez-owned Energy Development Corp. purchased 900,000 common shares from the market at an average price of P5.54 or a total amount of P4.99 million.

To date, EDC has repurchased P54.2 million worth of shares out of a total buy back program of P4 billion to be implemented from March 15, 2015 to March 14, 2017.

Razon-owned casino operator Bloomberry Resorts Corp., on the other hand, acquired an additional 808,000 from the open market for an estimated P2.83 million.

“The purpose of the share buyback is to allow Bloom to acquire enough listed Bloom shares (while the share price is low) that will cover the total number of shares granted to certain officers and employees under the Stock Incentive Plan (SIP),” it said.

Bloomberry has so far bought back almost 18.09 million shares since last June.