Sara Lee repurchases outstanding common stock

09 Sep '05

2 min read

At the Prudential “Back-to-School” Consumer Conference, L.M. (Theo) de Kool, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial and Administrative Officer of Brand-name products manufacturer Sara Lee Corporation, announced that the company has repurchased 29 million shares of its outstanding common stock since July 3, 2005, the beginning of the company's fiscal year.

The company's repurchases were made through a combination of open market purchases and an accelerated share repurchase program facilitated by Citigroup for a total cost of $562 million. The accelerated share repurchase program is expected to be completed within three to six months. The repurchases are part of the company's previously announced $2 billion, multi-year share repurchase program.

On Aug. 1, 2005, Sara Lee's board of directors increased the number of shares authorized for repurchase under the corporation's continuing stock repurchase program by 100 million shares, or approximately $2 billion in share buy-backs based on the current stock price. After today's announcement, Sara Lee has approximately 87 million shares remaining under the share repurchase authorization.

During his remarks, de Kool also provided an update on the company's planned divestitures.

“They continue to work aggressively on planned divestitures and are pleased that they were able to announce the sale of direct selling business ahead of schedule,” said de Kool. “In addition, they currently are negotiating with several interested parties regarding the sale of European apparel business. However, they are unlikely to announce that transaction by original target of the end of September.”

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