May 2025: Imperial Brands initiates the second buyback tranche of up to £625 million
Following the completion of the first £625 million tranche of the current share repurchase program, Imperial Brands entered into an irrevocable & non-discretionary arrangement with Barclays to execute the second tranche: £625 million of shares to be repurchased commencing from May 1, 2025 and ending no later than October 29, 2025.
As part of the multi-year buyback program, on October 8, 2024, Imperial Brands announced its intention to repurchase up to £1.25 billion of shares. On March 26, 2025, at the Capital Markets Day, Imperial Brands committed to an evergreen buyback program until FY30 to deliver a material reduction in the capital base over time.
October 2024: Imperial Brands initiates the first buyback tranche of up to £625 million
As part of the multi-year buyback program, Imperial Brands announced on October 8, 2024 that it intends to repurchase up to £1.25 billion of shares in the period to 29 October 2025. The program is guided by Imperial’s policy to distribute surplus capital to shareholders while maintaining a leverage at the lower end of its 2.0-2.5x range and a progressive dividend policy. The purpose of the share repurchase program is to reduce the share capital of Imperial Brands and all repurchased shares will be cancelled.
To execute the first tranche of the £1.25 billion program, Imperial Brands appointed Morgan Stanley to buy back up to £625 million of its shares commencing from 30 October 2024 and expected to end no later than 29 April 2025. Under this arrangement, Morgan Stanley will make share purchasing decisions independently and purchases may continue during any closed period to which Imperial Brands is subject.
The maximum number of shares that may be repurchased under the Program is 88.8 million shares (i.e. the maximum amount authorized), less shares already repurchased since the 2024 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Imperial Brands. Renewal of the authority to repurchase shares will be sought at the 2025 AGM.
October 2024: Imperial Brands announces £1.25 billion share buyback program
On October 8, Imperial Brands announced a new £1.25 billion share buyback program (~7% of share capital at the time of the announcement). which will be completed no later than 29 October 2025. This represents a 13.6% increase on the FY24 share buyback of £1.1 billion. As a result, Imperial Brands is on track to deliver total share buyback returns of £3.35 billion since the onset of the buyback program in FY22.
March 2024: Imperial Brands announces that the first tranche of the current share repurchase program is completed
Following the completion of £1Bn share repurchase program in FY23, Imperial Brands announced a new program of £1.1Bn in October 2023 that will last until the end of September 2024. Recall: Imperial Brands distribute surplus capital to shareholders (in the form of dividends and share buybacks) while maintaining its leverage at the lower end of 2.0-2.5x net debt to EBITDA range.
On March 11, 2024, Imperial Brands announced that the first tranche of the current share repurchase program is completed. The second tranche of the program (£550Mn) will commence on March 11, 2024 and last up until October 29, 2024 (longer than initially anticipated).
In the first repurchasing period (from October 6, 2023 to March 8, 2024), Imperial Brands shares have made a round-trip from £16s to £19s and back to £16s – similar to the price action caused by the FY23 share repurchase program (see below for further details).
October 2023: Imperial Brands announces £1.1 billion share buyback program
On October 5, Imperial Brands announced a new £1.1Bn share buyback program (~8% of share capital at the time of the announcement). In FY23 (October 2022 – September 2023), Imperial repurchased 52.1Mn shares (~5.5% of share capital, £1.0Bn in total). In the first two month of FY23 (October – November 2022), Imperial shares have ventured a 15% rally – yet, to close the FY23 down by 10%.
Morgan Stanley (Imperial’s broker) started the share repurchases on October 6. Since the initiation of the new program, Imperial’s one-directional, constant bid on its own shares make ~15% of its daily average trading volume and Imperial shares have gained ~15% (net of dividend).
