Spanish companies have made the most of the first months of this year to buy up some of their own shares. Thirteen companies on the Ibex 35 have completed major deals to buy and sell proprietary stock shares in 2012.
The companies with a leading role in buying proprietary shares during the past few months are Telefónica, Bankia, Abertis, Abengoa, Acciona, Dia, Iberdrola and FCC. In total, these companies have invested 960 million euros, taking into account the average price of their stocks throughout the year.
But not all deals were purchases. The construction company OHL and financials such as BBVA, Popular, Sabadell and Santander have trimmed their prop share positions by a collective total of 470 million euros.
Dividend payments
Telefónica made the most significant move. While the telecom does not hold the largest amount of proprietary shares in relative terms, the effort that it has dedicated to buying its own stock accounts for the most volume on the Ibex. In the middle of February it indicated that its portfolio of propriety shares had reached 1.975% from earlier levels of 1.022% held in July. Telefónica acquired some 46.950 million shares, meaning they now own a total of 90.15 million shares.
