Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG, AEX:PHI) today announced that it plans to repurchase EUR 5 billion worth of common Philips shares within the next two years. Shares repurchased under this new program will be subsequently cancelled. The announcement of this new share repurchase program follows the adoption by the Dutch parliament last night of an amendment in Dutch tax legislation, effective January 1st 2008, that increases the amount that companies may spend repurchasing shares free of withholding tax.
“This new program has been enabled by a more investor-friendly tax regime in the Netherlands that Philips has been advocating for a while and which will increase the tax efficient share repurchase capacity of companies within its scope. I am very pleased that as a result we are now able to take this additional important step in our capital re-allocation process,” Philips President and Chief Executive Officer Gerard Kleisterlee said. “With this share repurchase program now in place, combined with the EUR 5.2 billion worth of shares already repurchased since 2005 and the EUR 6.5 billion of acquisitions which we have completed or announced in the same period, Philips is well under way to achieve its goal of an efficient balance sheet before the end of 2009.”
Philips’ capital reallocation program aims to fuel growth at key businesses through value-creating acquisitions, while maintaining a good balance with capital redistribution to shareholders. This process has successfully positioned Philips as a focused, market-driven and people-centric company active in the areas of Healthcare, Lighting and Consumer Lifestyle.
As a consequence of this new share repurchase program, Philips will terminate as of today its second trading line through which EUR 820 million worth of shares were purchased out of an initially planned amount of EUR 1.63 billion.
Philips intends to begin this repurchase program as of January 2nd 2008 and will enter into subsequent discretionary management agreements with one or more banks to repurchase Philips shares within the limits of relevant laws and regulations (in particular EC Regulation 2273/2003) and Philips’ articles of association. All transactions under this program will be published on the Philips’ website (www.philips.com/investor) on a weekly basis.
The appropriate authorizations to complete the program will be proposed to the 2008 Annual General Meeting of shareholders.
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