Due to the steep and persistent share price to NAV/share discount, share buyback has been a contentious issue at ICAP AGMs. 

Does share buyback make sense for ICAP?

Based on the latest quarterly results (end-August 2021) and assuming that ICAP buys back 10m at RM2.43 (last Friday closing), spending about 5%  of the NAV to perform share buyback will enhance the NAV/share by 2.3%.

While it can enhance the value for shareowners, the downsides are:

i) Lower share trading liquidity due to reduced number of shares, and this may lead to illiquidity discount; and

ii)  Reduced fund size, which means lower fee (in absolute terms) for the fund manager .

What say you?