Imperial Brands PLC on Friday said its broker, Morgan Stanley & Co. International PLC, will source around £550 million of its shares under the first tranche of its new buyback programme.

This comes after the Bristol-based tobacco company had announced on Thursday a buyback of up to £1.1 billion shares, starting from Friday and running to September 2024. The first phase will run through to March of next year, Imperial Brands said on Friday.

The overall programme represents a 10% increase on last year’s £1 billion buyback, when the company repurchased 52.1 million shares, or 5.5%, of its share capital. This was completed last month.

Under the new programme, a maximum of 94.2 million shares will be purchased, which would be worth £1.57 billion at the current market price.

Shares in Imperial Brands were up 1.4% at 1,664.50 pence each in London on Friday morning.

On Thursday, Imperial Brands also had said it expects full-year trading to be in line with expectations, reporting that net revenue grew by a low single-digit percentage in the financial year that ended September 30.

Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.