Walmart Approves Billion-Dollar Buybacks

At its 41st annual meeting of shareholders, Walmart’s Board of Directors approved a new program authorizing the company to repurchase $15 billion of its shares. This program replaces the previous $15 billion program, announced on June 4, 2010, that had approximately $2 billion of remaining authorization. Under the program, repurchased shares are constructively retired and returned to unissued status.

“Our purchase of almost $13 billion of Walmart stock since last June is indicative of our strong free cash flow position,” said Charles Holley, Walmart executive vice president and chief financial officer. “We are pleased to continue our share repurchase program with this new $15 billion authorization.”

Through June 2, under the 2010 authorization, the company had spent more than $12.9 billion to repurchase more than 244 million shares. In addition to share repurchase, the company continues to return value to shareholders through dividends. Walmart increased the current fiscal year dividend per share by approximately 21 percent to $1.46, from $1.21 in fiscal 2011. During the first quarter of this year, the company distributed $1.3 billion in dividends.

“The combination of our annual dividend and share repurchase program indicates the strength of our company and its commitment to returning value to Walmart shareholders,” Holley added. “Walmart has increased its dividend every year since March of 1974, when we began paying a dividend of five cents per share.”