LeapRate Exclusive… LeapRate has learned from regulatory filings made by payments services and technologies provider SafeCharge International Group Ltd (LON:SCH) that the company has recently bought back 500,000 of its own shares on the open market.
The shares were purchased at an average price of £1.90, for a total cost to SafeCharge of £900,000 (before fees).
SafeCharge stated that the purchased shares will be held in treasury, with the expectation that they will be utilized to satisfy the exercise of existing or vested options by employees as and when required. The total number of Ordinary Shares in issue (excluding treasury shares) following this purchase is 151,149,257.
The share buyback comes as SafeCharge shares continue their downward spiral begun in March (see graph below).
As we reported recently when JP Morgan sold down most of its position in SafeCharge, there doesn’t seem to be an easy explanation for SafeCharge’s three month share price drop. The company indicated recently that it will report record EBITDA for the first half of 2016. However SafeCharge did seem to hint that EBITDA didn’t grow by that much. Perhaps investors are sensing that things are stable at SafeCharge, but that the company isn’t growing much at this point.
SafeCharge one year share price graph. Source: CNBC.