Was the buyback due to start on Monday the reason for the bit of interest late today?
Thomb. the buyback is for nearly 35m shares over about 250 trading days or about 140,000 shares/ day. A bit high under normal circumstances, I agree. Any major stock market shock could change that. But the point is that is the maximum number that can be bought from this annx. Almost certainly the year will end without all shares being bought and this current buyback annx will be cancelled. A new annx can be made in 12 months time regardless whether the current 35m have been bought. It will depend on what the company thinks will be prudent at that time.
DDH say the buyback is due to the shares being undervalue. So if the SP rises with a good report later this month what does DDH is fair value? Obviously over a dollar. I say that because the chair has added some recently at about 88c and another board member added at 99c. DDH have commented that the business is performing well. I'm optimistic and have added recently.
Yes, buybacks are not a certainty for SP increases, but when the business is going well, it helps in the long run. SWK's buyback result may serve as a bit of an example. SWK was struggling till about 3 years ago. I bought back in at 12c for the first batch. The SP then rose to about 15c. It fluctuated a cent or so either side of 15c even though business was improving. A buyback was annx. All this did was hold the price up, but when reports showed it's business was also holding well the SP quickly rose to 22c or so, steadied and then started rising again t/o takeover by DDH was annx. One could say the t/o was better for SWK holders and/or cheaper for DDH holders than it would have been if the buybacks hadn't proceeded, as there were less shares to be swapped for DDh shares.
Baring a stock market or commodity crash or covid travel restrictions there is no reason not to expect at least a dollar in 6/7 months.
