AEGON N.V. (ADR)(NYSE:AEG) will repurchase around 51.864 million common shares to counterbalance the dilutive effect of the last year final and this year’s interim stock dividends. These equities will be held as treasury stock and will be utilized to compensate future stock payouts. The company will commit to the repurchase of the shares by engaging a third party to close the transactions on its behalf.
The highlights
Aegon reported that these transactions will start on October 2, 2017, and are anticipated to be closed on or before December 15, 2017. The company will release weekly updates pertaining the transactions on aegon.com/sharebuyback. Last month, the company shareholders were provided the chance to choose between getting the 2017 interim payout of EUR 0.13 per common share in stock or in cash. The cash dividend and the stock payout are almost equal in value. 43% of shareholders were said to get the stock dividend.
Those who finalized to get a stock dividend will get one Aegon common share in lieu for 36 common shares held. The stock percentage is dependent on company’s average share price as noted on Euronext Amsterdam, using the low and high of each of the five trading sessions from September 4 up to September 8, 2017. This process resulted in the average share price of EUR 4.7033. The payout date was fixed as September 15, 2017. At that time only, the company reported that it plans to neutralize the dilutive effect of the dividend on EPS in the fourth quarter of this year, excluding unforeseen circumstances.
In the last trading session, the stock price of Aegon declined more than 1% to close the day at $5.79. The decline came at a share volume of around 7.16 million compared to average share volume of 1.88 million. After the recent decline, the market cap of firm was noted at $12.17 billion.