Airbus has announced that it had bought back its share capital between February 27 and March 3, 2023.
The five transactions that occurred during the period have resulted in the European aircraft manufacturer buying back a total of 171,250 shares of its stocks that are listed on the Paris Stock Exchange. On average, Airbus paid €123.4 ($131.7) per share, with the total transaction being worth around €21.1 million ($22.5 million). The decision to do so was approved by the company’s shareholders, which granted Airbus the authority to purchase up to 10% of its shares in an Annual General Meeting (AGM) of shareholders in April 2022.
According to the stock exchange where the European Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is listed, the total market capitalization of Airbus, as of March 7, 2023, was €97.2 billion ($103.7 billion), with a total of over 788 million shares issued. Per the manufacturer’s own financial report, as of December 31, 2022, 74.1% of those shares were freely traded on the market, while the remaining 25.9% were held by three different shareholders, while treasury shares accounted for 0.1% of the total share capital of Airbus.
The three institutional shareholders are SOGEPA (Societé de Gestion de Participations Aéronautiques, 10.9% shares), a holding company owned by the French government, GZBV (Gesellschaft zur Beteiligungsverwaltung, 10.9%), a holding company owned by KfW, a German state-owned bank, and SEPI (Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales, 4.9%), a sovereign wealth fund owned by the Spanish state.
Airbus finished 2022 on a high note, with a net profit of €4.2 billion ($4.4 billion) on revenues of more than €58.8 billion ($62.7 billion), with a total gross cash flow from operations of €5.5 billion ($5.8 billion). While the fact that supply chain and labor-related issues prevented the manufacturer from reaching its target of 700 aircraft deliveries in 2022, the 661 deliveries had no material impact on the company’s results by the year’s end.