Chart of the Day: 33 firms bought back $174m of their shares in June

CapitaLand led the tally and bought back 17.2 million shares for $60.8m.

This chart from SGX Research shows that 33 Singapore-listed firms bought back their own shares in June 2018 for a total of $174m. The buyback consideration was up 26% from $137.9m in May and the third highest reported monthly consideration since September 2015.

During the month a number of stocks commenced new mandates including - Keppel Corporation, Wing Tai Holdings, Q & M Dental Group (Singapore), SingHaiyi Group, Memtech International, Sembcorp Industries, OUE, Telechoice International, AEM Holdings, Health Management International, Tiong Seng Holdings, Mun Siong Engineering, Koda, Annaik, CDW Holding, and S I2I.

The 33 stocks included nine STI constituents - CapitaLand, UOB, Keppel, OCBC, SATS, Yangzijiang, Venture, SPH, and Sembcorp Industries, which made up as much as $155.4m of the $174m consideration.

CapitaLand led the June tally with the repurchase of 17.2 million shares for a consideration of $60.8m. The largest buyback consideration posted by a non-STI stock was by Wing Tai, which bought back 2.3 million shares for a consideration of $4.5m.

The Straits Times Index (STI) declined 4.7% for the month of June bringing its dividend inclusive decline in total return to 2.3% for the first half of 2018. This compared to the benchmarks of Australia, Hong Kong and Japan, registering SGD denominated average total returns of 1.2% for the six months.

Share buyback transactions involve share issuers repurchasing some of their outstanding shares from shareholders through the open market.

"Once the shares are bought back, they will be converted into treasury shares, which means they are no longer categorised as shares outstanding. Other motivations for share buybacks include companies moving to align stock valuations with balance sheet objectives," SGX Research said.