This week was all about repurchases, with companies taking advantage of weaker stock prices to buy back their own shares from the marketplace.

Last week Naspers and Prosus announced the start of an open-ended share repurchase programme of Naspers and Prosus shares. The companies have since announced that during the period 28 June to July 1, 2022, a total of 4,266,596 Prosus shares were acquired for an aggregate €264,3 million and 527,276 Naspers shares for R1,24 billion.

During the period May 27, 2022 to June 30, 2022, Barloworld repurchased 6,004,502 shares for an aggregate value of R548,38 million. The general repurchase represents 3% of the company’s issued share capital. The shares will be delisted and cancelled. Following the cancellation, Barloworld will hold 3,194,290 ordinary shares as treasury shares representing 1.64% of the companies issued ordinary shares.

Investec Ltd has repurchased 942,642 preference shares representing 3.06% of the company’s issued preference share capital. The preference shares were repurchased at prices between R94.33 and R97.79 for an aggregate value of R90,5 million.

Santova has applied to the JSE for the cancellation of 1,329,736 shares held as treasury shares following the repurchase at an average price of R4,24. Following the cancellation of the shares the remaining share capital of the company will be 137,440,516 shares.

This week British American Tobacco repurchased 1,060,000 shares for a total of £37,33 million. The purchased shares will be held in treasury with the number of shares permitted to be repurchased set at 229,400,000.

Glencore this week repurchased 7,860,000 shares for a total consideration of £33,54 million in terms of its existing buyback programme which is expected to end in August 2022.

This week one company issued a profit warning. The company was Trellidor.

One company this week issued or withdrew a cautionary notice. The company was Aveng.

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