What’s the point in having a share buyback program when you don’t buy back shares?
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 19, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — First
Majestic Silver Corp. (“First Majestic” or the “Company”) announces that
its board of directors has approved the extension of its share
repurchase program (the “Share Repurchase”) pursuant to a normal course
issuer bid in the open market through the facilities of the Toronto
Stock Exchange (“TSX”) or alternative Canadian market places over the
next 12 months. Pursuant to the Share Repurchase, the Company proposes
to repurchase up to 5,000,000 common shares of the Company which
represents 2.54% of the 196,626,046 issued and outstanding shares of the
Company as of March 1, 2019.
Continues here. Meanwhile, some facts:
- In 2018, First Majestic bought back zero shares
- In 2017, First Majestic bought back the magnificent total of 230,000 shares.
- What’s more, since those buyback happened the share count has moved up, from 165m to 196m shares.
So why doesn’t FR.to use its self-important buyback facility? Well that’s easy, just take a look at the company’s numbers and compare them to the U$33m or so it would cost the company to fully implement its 2019 buyback:
2016: Operating profit, $49.2m, net earnings $8.6m
2017: Operating profit, $16.0m, net loss $53.3m
2018: Operating loss, $11.9m, net loss $204.2m
These jokers don’t just make net losses, they can’t even run their mines at a profit. Add in the exorbitant G&A that FR.to runs and you finish with a company that saw its cash position drop from $118m to $57m last year…WITHOUT BUYING BACK A SINGLE SHARE!
First Majestic can pimp itself by trumpeting a share buyback plan if it likes, but scratch the surface and you quickly see that it may think it’s big and influential but is in fact small, unimportant and just rather noisy. Now, who does that remind you of?