Baidu Approves $1 Billion Share Buyback Over Next 12 Months
ByA woman walks past the Baidu logo at the company’s headquarters in Beijing, China. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
Baidu Inc. approved the buy back of as much as $1 billion of stock just days after shares of China’s largest search-engine company plummeted on its sales forecast.
The shares will be bought both on- and off-market in the next 12 months, with the program funded from existing cash, Baidu said in a statement on Thursday. It’s Baidu’s first buyback in almost seven years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Baidu shares have lost 18 percent this week as the company posted earnings and forecast sales that missed analysts’ estimates amid higher costs and a slowing Chinese economy. The market decline wiped out more than $12 billion from Baidu’s valuation and extended the 2015 share drop to 25 percent…