Vodafone to buy back £340m of shares to offset convertible bonds

(Sharecast News) - Vodafone said it would buy back up to £340m of shares as the first stage in offsetting the issue of shares linked to convertible bonds.
The FTSE 100 telecoms group said the first tranche of the mandatory convertible bonds (MCB) worth £1.72bn matured on 12 March, resulting in Vodafone issuing 1.43 billion shares from its Treasury. Vodafone bought back shares between 22 March and 18 May to partly offset the increase in its share capital from the maturing of the first tranche of bonds.

Vodafone said it intended to launch further buyback programmes over the next 10 months to further offset the maturing of the first tranche of bonds before the second batch matures in March 2022.

The company said it would buy back a maximum of £340m of shares and hold the securities in treasury. The repurchase is within the limit set at Vodafone's annual general meeting, it said.

"Vodafone today announces it will commence a new irrevocable and non-discretionary share buy-back programme," the company said. "The sole purpose of the new programme is to further reduce the issued share capital of Vodafone to partially offset the increase in the issued share capital as a result of the maturing of the first tranche of the MCB."

Shares of Vodafone were little changed at 129p at 09:03 BST.