Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Banco Pine SA

In Sao Paulo Rogerio Jelmayer of Dow Jones Newswires reports a very curious thing. There is a bank in Brazil is that buying back its equity. Thus instead of increasing capital, it is buying shares thus back using up capital.

He reports, "The board of Banco Pine SA (PINE4.BR), a Brazilian mid-sized bank, approved a buyback program of up to an additional 2.07 million shares, the bank said Tuesday in a statement.

"Banco Pine, which trades on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange, or Bovespa, has 21.67 million shares outstanding. The program will be in place until July 3, 2010.

"In October, the company approved a plan to buy back up to 1.2 million shares.

"On Monday, Banco Pine's stock closed at 5.50 Brazilian reals ($2.40) on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange, the Bovespa."

Perhaps, it figures it can help itself more by driving up the share price than by selling shares at a depressed price. Or maybe Brazil is doing better than the rest of the world.

Curious.


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