Goldman Sachs says it will restart stock buybacks in the third quarter
- Goldman Sachs will restart stock repurchases in the third quarter, the company said Friday in its quarterly securities filing.
- The restart, contingent on Federal Reserve approval of the firm's capital plan and other business opportunities, reverses a second-quarter pause that spooked investors.
Well, that didn't last long.
Goldman Sachs will restart stock repurchases in the third quarter, the company said Friday in its quarterly securities filing.
The restart, contingent on Federal Reserve approval of the firm's capital plan and other business opportunities, reverses a second-quarter pause that spooked investors and drove the share price down 1.7% the day it was announced.
"We plan to resume repurchases in the third quarter and we currently expect our repurchases of shares of our common stock to be approximately $5 billion to $6 billion,'' for an annual stress-test cycle, the bank said in the filing.
Goldman Sachs shares dropped April 17 after CFO Marty Chavez said the company would halt share repurchases in the second quarter of this year and use the capital where it could generate higher returns by serving customers. The firm is conserving capital after last year's tax reform caused a fourth-quarter loss.
Chavez said then that share buybacks would be approximately $5 billion to $6 billion over the "medium term," but that that it didn't expect to buy back at that pace in the first half of 2018. Chavez didn't say at the time when the bank would return to that $5 billion to $6 billion rate.
In the first quarter, Goldman Sachs brought in the most quarterly revenue in three years and gave fixed-income trading results that suggest the firm has turned around its struggling commodities-trading desk.
Now, about that capital plan: The Fed will release its decision for Goldman Sachs and the rest of the industry by the end of next month.