The board of Saudi Arabia’s flagship mining company Ma’aden has approved the buyback of 5.69 million ordinary shares under its employee stock incentive long-term plan. 

The shares will be retained as treasury shares, the company said in a statement to the Saudi stock exchange. The current percentage of treasury shares held by the mining giant is 0.0588%.

The buyback will be financed from the company’s internal resources.

Maaden will need to get approval at the upcoming extraordinary general assembly as per the requirements of the implementing regulations of the Companies Law.

The repurchased shares will not have any voting rights at the general assembly meeting.

In February, the company posted an 83% year-on-year (YoY) drop in its full-year 2023 net profit attributable to shareholders to 1.58 billion riyals ($421 billion) on lower prices for most of its products.

(Editing by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@lseg.com)