NORWAY (MEDIA REPORT)
Telenor has finalised the market part of the 2017-2018 buyback programme announced on 17 July 2017. The total programme comprises 30.00 million shares, of which 13.81 million shares were repurchased in the open market. The remaining 16.19 million shares will be purchased from the Kingdom of Norway through the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries and hence the Ministry’s ownership interest in Telenor of 53.97% will remain unaffected.
The 30.00 million shares will be cancelled following approval by the Annual General Meeting in May 2018, whereby the number of registered Telenor shares will be reduced by approximately 2.0% from today’s 1,501,458,030. The shares that have been repurchased in the open market have had an immediate cash effect whereas the pro rata shares from the Norwegian state will be paid simultaneously with the capital reduction, which is estimated to occur in mid-2018.
The weighted average price for the 30.00 million shares is NOK 172.47 and with this Telenor will return NOK 5.2 billion to its shareholders.
As previously communicated, the Board of Directors will in addition propose an ordinary dividend of NOK 12.2 billion for the financial year 2017 (NOK 8.10 per share) paid out in two tranches of NOK 4.20 and NOK 3.90 per share in May and November 2018, respectively.