John Fredriksen’s Golden Ocean Group is ploughing on with a $100m share buyback programme to take advantage of dips in the stock’s value.
Since the scheme began in 2022, the bulker company has reacquired $11.6m of its stock in Oslo and New York.
A total of 741,900 shares have been repurchased at an average price of $7.84 per share on the Nasdaq exchange in the US, and 765,428 shares have been bought in Norway at an average price of NOK 81.20 ($7.68).
The stock was trading at NOK 137.75 ($13) in Oslo on Thursday.
The board has now extended the authorisation for another year.
Up to 10m shares can be bought to return value to shareholders.
Golden Ocean has repurchased 1.5m so far.
Peder Simonsen, interim chief executive and chief financial officer, said: “The sentiment in the capital markets and dry bulk freight is volatile and has over the last year been impacted by uncertainty regarding global economic outlook.
“As a result, [the] Golden Ocean share has in periods been trading at a discount to underlying substance values, despite healthy freight markets.”
Simonsen said the company continues to believe that it is in the shareholders’ interest to extend the scheme as part of its capital allocation strategy.
“We will opportunistically utilise the extended programme as a supplement to our long-term focus on dividend,” he said.
