KARACHI: Lucky Cement Ltd told investors on Friday it’s extending the period during which it’ll buy back up to 10 million of its own shares from the stock market for the purpose of cancellation.

Lucky Cement will start buying back its shares on Sept 29. It’ll keep repurchasing the shares until March 27, 2023, or the date when the targeted buyback volume is achieved. Earlier on, the last date for the buyback was Dec 19 of the current calendar year.

The change is in line with the amendments to the Listed Companies (Buyback of Shares) Regulations issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan via a statutory regulatory order on Sept 6.

An analyst covering the cement sector told Dawn that the industry is expecting a substantial increase in installed capacity in coming months — a phenomenon that may possibly lead to lower stock prices of cement companies. “It’s possible that the company wants to wait for the share price to go down a little before it buys back the intended volume,” he said while requesting that he not be named.

According to a research report by Topline Securities, it expects cement despatches to decline 12pc in the current fiscal year.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2022