Samsung makes investors happy with $1bn share buyback

Samsung has announced a plan to buy back $2bn worth of its shares, after investors pressured the firm for higher returns. The Korean chaebol will buy back 1.65 million common shares and 250,000 preferred shares in its first buyback since 2007, and the second-largest ever. Sammy said in a regulatory filing the stock …

[grumpy feline]

Desperate times

Share buybacks show they don't know what to do. Oh well.

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: Desperate times

Nah, it shows that they are desperate to keep the share price higher than their trading figures alone would warrant.

They don't have the billions and billions of won in the bank like Apple.

Yes there is a school of thought that by doing this they can be seens to be doing something but frankly apart from the Semi-conductor division where the margins are rather thin, the rest of the company is a bit of a basket case. The flasgship S5 has just about tanked when comparing actual sales against projected sales.

Apple on the otherhand were literally forced to intitate a share buy-back to satisfy one major investor. While they could afford it, it appears that they'd rather have the cask in the bank.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Desperate times

When you have more cash than you can use, it should be returned to the shareholders either via dividends or buybacks. As a shareholder you don't want extra cash laying around tempting the CEO/board to spend it on bad ideas or bad acquisitions.

[Anna Logg]

Re: Desperate times

Spot on - Nokia threw billions into the share buyback furnace in the 2000s, achieving diddly in the process.

[Anonymous Coward]

The writing's on the wall

Their heydays of being the top dog in the Android era's early days is over.

They still seem to think they are the only act in town. And charges Apple prices for an average specced phone.

[Anonymous Coward]

samsung has made some great phones, but so far they've seen limited success translating their brand into apple's luxury market, and over the long term it's unlikely they'll be able to compete effectively with companies like xiaomi or huawei on the other end of the scale.