Big New Stock Buyback Plan From AT&T -- 6% Off Its Shares

Telecom & Wireless

Published: March 31, 2014 9:45 am

Last Updated: March 31, 2014 9:46 am

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is already the highest Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dividend payer by far. Its yield is 5.2%, and that is after its stock has rallied almost 10% from its lows. Now AT&T is making more waves with a big share buyback announcement.

The telecom giant’s board of directors has authorized the repurchase of up to 300 million shares of common stock. AT&T’s new plan has no expiration and is on top of a prior 300 million share buyback plan that was completed last year. AT&T said:

Under the March 2013 300 million share authorization, AT&T repurchased about 175 million of its shares through March 28, 2014. Since the company began buying back shares in 2012, AT&T has repurchased 775 million of its shares, or approximately 13 percent of shares outstanding.

As far as what this new buyback plan translates to in real terms, the 300 million shares are roughly 6% of the total AT&T common shares outstanding.

Over the past week we have seen serious inflows into shares of AT&T, which appears to be value investors buying the company at a discount to the DJIA and also buyers of the most beaten down DJIA stocks.

AT&T shares were trading up another 0.6% at $35.37 shortly after the opening bell. If this gain holds up on Monday, AT&T shares will have risen for roughly 10 of the past 13 trading sessions.

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