Saudi Arabia’s Advanced Petrochemical has announced plans to repurchase as many as 1.5 million shares and increase its capital by 20.1 percent through the issuance of bonus shares.

The company, which is one of the major players in the kingdom’s petrochemical industry, said it intends to allocate the repurchased shares within its Employee Shares Incentive Program. 

“The purpose of [the purchase is] to retain them as treasury shares for [the incentive program],” the company told the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) on Wednesday. 

Advanced said it will use its “own resources” for the planned buyback. However, it noted that the shares allocated to employees will not be entitled to any dividends during the period the company holds them. 

As for the capital increase, the company said it expects to expand its shares from more than 216 million to 260 million shares. It plans to grant one share for every five shares to shareholders.

Advanced posted a net profit of 218 million riyals ($58 million) for the third quarter of 2021, up nearly 40 percent over a year earlier. 

(Writing by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Mily Chakrabarty) 

Cleofe.maceda@lseg.com 

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