这也是自2007年安踏上市以来的首份股权回购计划。Shareholder return.
ANTA Sports (2020.HK), which delivered its best interim report in history, announced an unexpectedly large billion-dollar buyback plan.
On August 27, ANTA announced plans to repurchase and cancel shares within 18 months using not more than 10 billion Hong Kong dollars (equivalent to approximately 9.143 billion RMB), with funding from ANTA's own funds. The repurchase price will not exceed 5% of the average stock price of the previous five trading days.
This is also ANTA's first share buyback plan since its listing in 2007.
Based on ANTA's average price of 67.86 HK dollars per share in the five trading days before August 27, if the full 10 billion HK dollars is used, it can repurchase approximately 0.147 billion shares, accounting for around 5.19% of ANTA Sports' total 2.833 billion shares.
On the same day, ANTA disclosed its mid-term financial report as of the end of the first half of 2024, with cash and cash equivalents of 9.105 billion yuan, total deposits exceeding 3-month fixed deposits and pledged deposits reaching 47.83 billion yuan, enough to cover current liabilities of 27.352 billion yuan.
ANTA's billion-dollar buyback plan accounts for approximately 19.12% of its current assets.
The introduction of ANTA's buyback plan exceeded market expectations and was also considered 'reasonable and expected.'
As of the close on August 27, the year-to-date decline in Anta's stock price is 4.85%, and it has been falling for three and a half years since 2021, with a drop of 60% from the highest price of HKD 182.32 per share, with a trailing PE ratio of only 18 times.
Anta's Chairman of the Board, Ding Shizhong, also conveyed some optimistic information at the performance conference after the release of the results: "The repurchase of stocks within 10 billion fully demonstrates our confidence in the future development of the company. So whether you think it's good or not, it's probably been about the same in the past, but we have also been doing well, we have confidence (to do well)."
Ding Shizhong revealed that in the first half of this year, Kolon Sports was Anta's brand with the highest growth rate, while Descente will "achieve a scale of 10 billion in the future".
"With our PE ratio so low now, if you look at these two brands alone, it should be at least 30 times," Ding Shizhong added.
