20th Jul 2018 08:18
LONDON (Alliance News) - Unilever PLC on Friday said it has completed the first EUR3 billion tranche of the previously announced EUR6 billion share buyback programme.
The consumer goods giant also said that it has commenced the second tranche to buy back shares worth EUR3 billion in line with its previously announced plans.
In April 2018, Unilever announced its intention to return EUR6 billion to investors by repurchasing shares, in line with plans to target a net debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of 2.0 times and returning the proceeds from the disposal of its Spreads business. The company completed the disposal of the Spreads business in July
This second tranche of the programme will commence immediately and will be to buy back Unilever PLC and NV ordinary shares.
The maximum number of shares to be bought back by Unilever PLC in the second tranche is 91.4 million shares and the maximum number of shares to be bought back by Unilever NV is 179.3 million shares.
The buyback programme is being managed by Deutsche Bank AG and UBS AG.
On Thursday, the Dove soap maker had reported a year-on-year drop in sales and profit for the first half of 2018 on the back of a truckers strike in Brazil, weakening of economic conditions in Argentina, and adverse currency movements.
The Anglo-Dutch consumer goods firm also revealed its plans to hold general meetings for Unilever NV and PLC shareholders on October 25 and 25, respectively, to vote on the company's previously announced business simplification plan, which includes abandoning its current dual-headed corporate structure and rebasing the company in the Netherlands.
For the six months to June-end, the company recorded pretax profit of EUR4.34 billion, down 6.3% from EUR4.63 billion in the year-ago period. Revenue fell 5.0% to EUR26.35 billion from EUR27.73 billion.
Shares in Unilever on Friday were trading 0.5% higher at 4,354.00 pence each.
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