Share buybacks down 36% to $18.7m in April

It’s 35% higher than the buybacks in April 2016.

In the month of April 2017, SGX said that there was a total of 19,976,300 shares repurchased by 14 companies, with a total consideration of$18,719,472. Buybacks in April 2017 have taken the total share buyback consideration for the 2017 YTD to S$101 million.

This compares to consideration of S$201 million for the first four months of 2016, which corresponded with the STI trading below 3,000.

Here’s more from SGX:

Buyback consideration in April 2017 was down 36% from the S$29.1 million consideration reported for March 2017. The decline in buyback activity has coincided with earnings reports and blackout periods for companies buying back their own shares. However, the S$18.7 million in April 2017 buybacks is 35% higher as compared with the S$13.9 million in April 2016

The five stocks with the largest buyback consideration value last month were Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (“OCBC”), DeClout, Bumitama Agri, Japfa and SIA Engineering. Of the five stocks, OCBC and SIA Engineering were also amongst the five stocks with the largest buyback consideration value in March 2017, in addition to April 2016.

Of the five stocks, OCBC and SIA Engineering have also gained in the first four months of 2017, with respective total returns of 9.9% and 11.0%. Meanwhile DeClout, Bumitama Agri, Japfa have seen declines in their share price of the past four months.