Adidas announced the start of the third tranche of its current multi-year share buyback program initially announced in March 2018 and intends to repurchase own shares worth up to €1.0 billion in 2020.
In total, under the current program, Adidas plans to buy back own shares for up to €3.0 billion between March 2018 and May 2021. In the previous two tranches of the program, the company bought back a total of 8.3 million shares, corresponding to 4.1 percent of the company’s stock capital, for a total consideration of €1.8 billion.
The buyback program complements Adidas’ policy to pay an annual dividend to shareholders in the range of 30 percent to 50 percent of net income from continuing operations. Taking dividend payments into consideration, the company has returned a total amount of cash of €3.0 billion to its shareholders since the start of the current program in March 2018.
As announced in March 2018, Adidas intends to cancel the majority of the repurchased shares. A total of 8.8 million treasury shares have been canceled since the start of the current program, reducing the company’s share count and stock capital correspondingly.
