Prudential's Aggressive Share Repurchases (PRU)

Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE:PRU) has declared an annual dividend for 2007 of $1.15 per share of Common Stock, which represents an increase of 21% percent over the 2006 dividend.

But perhaps even more importantly, Prudential has authorized repurchases of up to $3.5 billion of its outstanding Common Stock in calendar year 2008 under the company’s stock repurchase program.  The board of directors had previously authorized the repurchase of up to $3 billion of its outstanding Common Stock in 2007, and from January 1 to November 12, 2007, the company has repurchased approximately $2.6 billion of its Common Stock under the authorization for 2007.

At a $97.00 handle, and assuming the same amount of buybacks for 2008 as 2007, that would represent 26.8 million shares if no more shares were purchased.  If the company used its entire $3.5 Billion arsenal, it would represent about 36 million shares.  That’s not bad for a stock with an average daily volume of about 2.6 million shares.

Prudential’s 52-week trading range is $78.22 to $97.23.  Hopefully this isn’t masking some major debt issue on the books.

Jon C. Ogg
November 13, 2007

Jon Ogg produces the 24/7 Wall St. Special Situation Investing Newsletter; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.