adidas today announced the completion of the first tranche of its current multi-year share buyback program announced in March 2018. Between March 22, 2018, and December 4, 2018, the company bought back 5.1 million shares, corresponding to 2.5% of the company’s share capital, for a total consideration of € 1 billion. The average purchase price per share was € 196.45.

Under the current program, adidas plans to buy back own shares for up to € 3.0 billion in total until May 2021. The buyback program, which the company intends to continue with a second tranche in January 2019, complements adidas’ stated policy to pay an annual dividend to shareholders in the range of 30% to 50% of net income from continuing operations. Taking into consideration the dividend payment of € 528 million for the financial year 2017 which was made in May, the total amount of cash the company returned to its shareholders in 2018 was more than € 1.5 billion. 

As previously announced, adidas intends to cancel the majority of the repurchased shares. A total of 8.8 million treasury shares, which resulted from the current and the previous buyback program, were cancelled in October, reducing the company’s share count and stock capital correspondingly.