But a recent exit of a short-term venture capital partner, and a significant share buy back by Kaspersky ownership means that the initial idea of listing shares has been shelved.
Shareholders too may prefer a share buy-back to the uncertain pay-off from an investment programme.
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IBM's results on April 29th, combined with news of a huge new share buy-back, sent its shares up by more than 5%.
Mordashov's revised offer comes just two days after Arcelor backed down over a planned share buy-back designed to frustrate billionaire steel raja Lakshmi Mittal's approach.
Shareholders might want to see some of this money themselves, but Mr Zondervan dislikes the idea of a share buy-back because of its tax implications in the Netherlands, but also because he would rather spend the money.
Assuming short-sellers are correct about a company's outlook, they must at some point buy back the share borrowed.
Paul Marsh, of the London Business School, says studies suggest that, in the American market, the announcement of a buy-back boosts the share price by around 2%, compared with around half that in Britain.
Using it to buy back stock and reduce the share count will increase the earnings per share for those investors who don't sell.
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In normal circumstances, a buy-back boosts earnings per share, making it easier for the company to meet market estimates and for its executives to profit from their stock options.
It does take a stretch to believe they will continue buy back shares next year as fundamentals improve, so the per share valuation metrics noted above would only benefit from such actions.
Companies buy back stock for a variety of reasons from earnings-per-share enhancement to lack of share price growth.
The company noted that while it did not buy back any shares in the latest quarter, it expects to resume share repurchases in the first quarter.
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All have seen their share prices ease back down over the past three weeks, after the storm spurred an impulse buy for investors figuring that all the damage in Louisiana and Mississippi would bring big business to the big home builders.
The entire cash proceeds of the share issuance will be returned to ASML shareholders (not including participating customers) through a synthetic buy-back.
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In October the company announced it would buy back 10 million shares of its own stock, in the hope of propping up the share price.
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