Johannesburg - Interesting times continue for the usually sedate Comair with yesterday’s announcement that it had bought back almost 4 percent of its shares.
The company issued a Stock Exchange News Service statement yesterday informing shareholders that it had repurchased 19 million shares at an average price of R3.23 a share for a total outlay of R61.6 million.
Comair shares closed 3c down at R3.20 yesterday.
Yesterday’s repurchase comes just four weeks after Comair repurchased 29 million of its shares following share sales by two of its directors.
In early November, Comair announced that it had repurchased 29.8 million shares following the sale of a similar number of shares by the two directors, Atul Gupta and Ronnie Ntuli.
Those shares were repurchased at an average price of R2.90 a share. This was the first ever share buy-back by the airline operator.
At the time Comair’s chief executive, Erik Venter, said the company had wanted to do a buy-back for some time but there was never any stock available.
The identity of the sellers of yesterday’s 19 million block of shares was not disclosed.
During the past 12 months, the share has traded at a high of R3.25 and a low of R1.55.
In yesterday’s announcement Comair said the combined number of shares that had been acquired since early November was just over 48 million and was equivalent to 10 percent of Comair’s issued share capital.
At the company’s annual general meeting at the end of October, shareholders approved a resolution granting the board the authority to repurchase a maximum of 10 percent of its issued share capital.
Yesterday’s repurchase, which analysts say appears designed to support the share price, is the latest in what has been an unusually active period for the company.
In addition to the substantial share repurchases, Gupta – who had been a director since 2009 – announced his resignation as an independent non-executive director shortly after selling his shares “due to the demands of his private business interests”.
Last week Comair announced that finance director Yasas Sri-Chandana was resigning with effect from January 15 next year, “as he will be relocating to Australia”.
At the same time, Comair announced that Hubert Brody, the outgoing chief executive of Imperial Holdings, had agreed to join its board as an independent non-executive director with effect from January 1. - Business Report