Since September, the total share repurchases in the A-share market have exceeded 70 billion yuan.

Since September, share repurchase activities of A-share listed companies have continued.

According to statistics from announcements of listed companies, since September, a total of 519 A-share companies have disclosed 561 announcements related to share repurchases, of which 408 have entered the substantive repurchase stage, with a cumulative total of 3.638 billion shares repurchased, costing 726.98 billion yuan.

On October 9 alone, 132 companies intensively disclosed their repurchase progress, marking the largest number of single-day disclosures since September. In terms of the purpose of repurchases, the relevant arrangements include not only maintaining the company's value and shareholders' rights and interests, but also equity incentives, employee stock ownership plans, etc.

Listed companies have repurchased a total of 727 billion yuan since September

From the overall progress, among the 408 companies that have launched repurchases, 168 have completed this round of repurchases, and 252 are still in the implementation process. The two groups have repurchased a total of 3.638 billion shares, costing 726.98 billion yuan.

At the same time, the repurchase camp is still expanding. At present, 125 companies are still in the stage of board of directors' plan, general meeting of shareholders' approval or shareholder proposal, disclosing a total of 130 relevant announcements, with the total upper limit of proposed repurchase amount reaching 100.06 billion yuan.

Divided by repurchase method, centralized bidding transaction is still the absolute mainstream. 401 companies implemented repurchases through this method, involving 388 companies, having repurchased 3.481 billion shares with an amount of 720.04 billion yuan, accounting for more than 99% of the total repurchase amount; targeted repurchase involves 156 announcements and 143 companies, with an amount of 373 million yuan; another 3 announcements adopted other methods, with an amount of 321 million yuan.

Midea Group ranks first with 9.9 billion yuan, 24 companies have a planned upper limit exceeding 10 billion yuan

The large-scale repurchases of leading companies are particularly eye-catching. The latest progress disclosed by Midea Group on October 9 shows that the company has cumulatively repurchased 123 million shares in this round, accounting for 1.61% of the total share capital, costing 9.94 billion yuan, with an average repurchase price of 80.81 yuan per share; its repurchase plan has an upper limit of 130 billion yuan and a lower limit of 65 billion yuan, making it the most generous company that has launched repurchases so far.

Following closely is SF Holding. The company announced on September 22 that it had completed this round of repurchase, with a cumulative total of 160 million shares repurchased, accounting for 3.14% of the total share capital, costing 59.99 billion yuan, and all the repurchased shares have been cancelled. Haier Smart Home has cumulatively repurchased 240 million shares through three phases of plans, investing 53.71 billion yuan; Innolight has repurchased 5.6531 million shares at an average price of 883.99 yuan per share, costing 4.997 billion yuan; CATL has repurchased 10.9452 million shares, investing 3.303 billion yuan, and its repurchase plan has an upper limit as high as 400 billion yuan.

In terms of planned scale, a total of 24 companies have an upper limit of repurchase amount of 10 billion yuan or above in this round. In addition to the aforementioned leading companies, they also include Wuliangye, GREE Electric Appliances, Foxconn Industrial Internet, Sinopec, MCC Group, Changan Automobile, BOE A, Yili Co., Ltd., Hengrui Medicine, Sungrow Power, etc. Among them, the repurchase plan of Yili Co., Ltd. was approved by the general meeting of shareholders on September 17, with a proposed upper limit of repurchase amount of 20 billion yuan and a lower limit of 10 billion yuan.

It is worth noting that securities firms have also joined this round of repurchases. Guojin Securities announced the completion of repurchase on September 15, costing 150 million yuan; Huachuang Yuntell has cumulatively invested 387 million yuan through two phases of plans; Guolian Minsheng has repurchased 100 million yuan.

Market value management becomes the primary motivation, cancellation-type repurchase is gradually gaining momentum

The reporter noticed that the motivation structure of this round of repurchases is significantly different from that in the past. Among all the announcements, 103 are for the purpose of "market value management", corresponding to an amount of 394.11 billion yuan, accounting for more than 50%; "implementing equity incentives or employee stock ownership plans" is still the category with the largest number of announcements, with a total of 202 announcements and an amount of 204.99 billion yuan; 51 announcements are for "maintaining the company's value and shareholders' rights and interests", with an amount of 53.69 billion yuan.

"Cancellation-type repurchase" is becoming a new trend.

Since September, a total of 95 announcements have involved the cancellation of repurchased shares, including many listed companies with large-scale repurchases. For example, the repurchased shares of SF Holding (59.99 billion yuan), Haier Smart Home (53.71 billion yuan in total for three phases), COSCO Shipping Holdings (7.55 billion yuan), Sinopec (5 billion yuan), and Supor (400 million yuan) have all been cancelled. Different from the repurchases for equity incentives, share cancellation can directly reduce the total share capital and increase earnings per share, which is also regarded by the market as a more "hardcore" way to reward shareholders.

In terms of industry distribution, the three sectors of capital goods, materials, and technology hardware and equipment contribute nearly half of the total repurchases, with 127, 80 and 76 companies respectively. In terms of trading boards, there are 250 announcements from Shanghai Stock Exchange companies, 156 from Shenzhen Stock Exchange, 131 from ChiNext and 71 from Sci-Tech Innovation Board.

The market support effect of repurchases remains to be tested, 220 companies have share prices higher than the average repurchase price, and 188 are still lower than the average repurchase price

After the real money is invested, what is the actual effect of supporting the market? Among the 408 companies with comparable data, 220 had their closing prices on October 12 higher than their average repurchase price, accounting for about 53.9%; another 188 companies still had their share prices lower than the average repurchase price, and the average deviation of share prices from the average repurchase price within the statistical range was -1.51%.

From the feedback of the secondary market, the share prices of some companies performed brightly during the repurchase period. The latest closing price of Sungrow Power rose by 29.48% compared with its average repurchase price, and the share prices of Innolight, GigaDevice, Longsys, Dongyangguang, Foxconn Industrial Internet and other companies all increased by more than 20%; Midea Group, GREE Electric Appliances, Hengrui Medicine, Supcon Technology and other companies are still below the average repurchase price, among which the deviation of Supcon Technology exceeds 30%.

In fact, repurchase is not a "universal cure" for share prices. The level of repurchase amount more reflects the company's judgment on its own valuation and cash flow strength, rather than a guarantee for short-term share prices. Industry insiders remind that while paying attention to the scale of repurchases, investors should pay more attention to the implementation progress of repurchase plans, the stability of capital sources and the final destination of repurchased shares, and avoid equating "paper plans" with the landing of real money investment.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "The Associated Press of Finance", author: Chen Junlan, authorized for release by 36Kr.