RE: Buy back29 Feb 2024 12:44
Main reason is that the Company are not in control of buying decisions - it's a merchant bank (JP Morgan in this case) making the trading decisions based on the LSE guidelines and company's resolution that allows the buyback. I imagine it's a LSE/PRA/FCA rule meaning trading decisions need to be arm's length.
Secondary to this is it would make not effective difference. In a perfect market with no external factors, the SP would drop by the amount of the dividend on ex-div day then rise slowly towards the next ex-div day.
Of course, that never actually happens in reality as there are are multitude of other factors in play (general market sentiment, sector sentiment, wars, GDP figures, issuing too many bonds in US! ......, the list is almost endless).
Thats also the reason the SP doesn't increase automatically in line with the buybacks. In theory, if they bought-back 1% of the issued shares in a day, the SP would rise by 1% (to keep the yield and EPS he same) over that day, but it's the other factors that mean it will almost certainly never happen exactly in line with the buyback.