JT repurchases almost 87 million shares

Japan Tobacco Inc said today that it had repurchased 86,805,500 of its common-stock shares for ¥249,999,840,000.

This followed a resolution by JT’s board of directors on Monday providing for the repurchase up to 118,000,000 of its common stock (6.20 per cent of the total issued shares, excluding treasury shares), or shares worth up to ¥250,000,000,000, through the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s off-auction, own-share repurchase system between February 27 and March 8.

As a result of today’s repurchase of shares by JT, the government, which had previously announced that it was to offer for sale 333,333,200 of JT’s common stock, is now expected to offer 253,261,800 shares.

And once the government has sold its shares, the Minister of Finance, currently JT’s controlling shareholder other than the parent company, with 52.2 per cent of voting rights, is expected no longer to meet that definition, though it will remain the largest shareholder, with 36.7 per cent of voting rights.