Jakarta, April 7th, 2020. PT XL Axiata Tbk. (XL Axiata) announced a share buyback program of up to Rp 500 billion in the stock market for a period of three months from 7 April 2020 to 6 July 2020. XL Axiata management believes the current share price, which is near all-time lows, does not reflect its business fundamentals which remain strong. The share buyback program is intended to send a positive signal to the market and instill confidence in XL Axiata’s long-term prospects.
President Director & CEO XL Axiata, Dian Siswarini said, “The current market sentiment has been very weak due to concerns around Covid-19. This has impacted share prices of all companies and even our share price has not been immune, and we are trading close to all-time lows. We believe that current share price level does not reflect the fundamentals of our business and therefore we initiated this share buyback program.”
Dian also added that, this share buyback program also supports government initiatives and is in accordance with the provisions under Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK) Circular Letter No. 3/SEOJK.04/2020 dated March 9th, 2020 which allows all issuers or public companies to conduct a buyback of shares without obtaining a prior approval of the shareholders in the GMS to support the stock market which has been volatile. “We can do this because we have a strong financial position with our strengthened balance sheet.”
XL Axiata supports the government initiatives with this Rp 500 billion share buyback program and XL Axiata has no plans to cancel the shares to be purchased through this buyback. The purpose of maintaining these shares as treasury shares is a long-term strategy of XL Axiata.