Share buybacks

Upcoming buybacks

Closed buybacks

Closed offers stay on the site for their entitlement ratios, financials and the profit a small shareholder could have made at each acceptance ratio.

How a tender offer buyback works

In a tender offer, the company fixes a price, usually above the market price, and invites shareholders who held shares on the record date to tender some or all of them. The entitlement ratio says how many shares you may tender per share held, and because most buybacks are oversubscribed, the acceptance ratio, the share of tendered shares the company actually buys, is known only after the offer closes.

Fifteen percent of every tender offer is reserved for small shareholders, defined as those whose holding was worth two lakh rupees or less at the market price on the record date. That reservation is why the entitlement ratio for small shareholders is usually much more generous than for the general category, and it is the reason retail investors follow buybacks at all.

Shares are tendered through your broker during the offer window. Shares that are not accepted are returned to your demat account a few days after the offer closes, and the money for accepted shares is credited at the same time.

The small-shareholder arithmetic

Rupix works out, for each buyback, how many shares a small shareholder can buy within the two-lakh limit, what that costs at the current market price, and what the profit would be if 33, 50, 75 or 100 percent of the tendered shares are accepted. The calculation uses the buyback price, the closing price on the day the figures were last refreshed, and the two-lakh ceiling. It does not include brokerage or tax.

Since October 2024 the amount a shareholder receives in a buyback is taxed as a dividend in their hands, and the cost of the shares becomes a capital loss that can be set off against capital gains. That change makes the after-tax arithmetic quite different from the headline premium, so check it against your own tax position before tendering.

Common questions about share buybacks