In the absence of clear accounting guidelines, the closing number of shares reported in the company annual report is not always equivalent to the closing balance of the group shares.The closing balance of the number of shares of 111 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, for the...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Repurchasing of shares by South African companies were legalised on 1 July 1999.This introduced an alternative to dividends for distributing cash to shareholders.Although dividends and share repurchases realise the same value in a perfect efficientmarket, the inefficiencies of...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Prior to 30 June 1999 companies in South Africa were not allowed to buy back their own shares. Amendments to the Companies Act, the Companies Amendment Act (Act 37 of 1999) radically changed the philosophy around capital maintenance. The result of this amendment is that a...

A Synthetic Repurchase is an open market share repurchase program enhanced with sales of put derivatives on the firm’s own stock. Microsoft, in 1999, using a synthetic repurchase program sold put derivatives on its own stock and received $766 million in premiums and, at the same time, signaled...