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Samsung Electronics Plans $7.2 Bln Buyback after Share Price Plunges

A Samsung logo is displayed in a supermarket in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 29, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
A Samsung logo is displayed in a supermarket in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 29, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
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Samsung Electronics Plans $7.2 Bln Buyback after Share Price Plunges

A Samsung logo is displayed in a supermarket in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 29, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
A Samsung logo is displayed in a supermarket in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 29, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

Samsung Electronics has decided to buy back shares worth 10 trillion won ($7.17 billion) over a one-year period to boost shareholder value, after shares plunged to more than four-year lows earlier in the week.
It is the first time Samsung Electronics has decided to buy back shares since 2017.
Of the total, three trillion won worth of shares, or 50.14 million common shares and 6.91 million preferred shares, will be repurchased in the next three months and cancelled, Samsung said after the market closed on Friday.
The board of directors will decide on ways to enhance shareholder value, including when and how to use the remaining seven trillion in the repurchase programme, Reuters quoted it as saying in a statement.
In the short term, the decision would likely help Samsung's share performance, but the company needs concrete business plans to better support its share performance, analysts said.
The world's top memory chip maker last month apologised for a disappointing quarterly profit, as it lagged rivals in supplying artificial intelligence chips to Nvidia. Samsung was the worst performing stock among major global chipmakers, also hurt by President-elect Donald Trump's threat to levy tariffs on imports that would hit demand for electronics products.
"It is a reflection that Samsung feels a sense of crisis due to the sharp stock drops," said Park Ju-gun, head of corporate analysis firm Leaders Index.
Park said the share buyback may intend to bolster depressed stock prices for Samsung shareholders including Chairman Jay Y. Lee's family members, who have put up some of their Samsung stocks as collateral to help pay inheritance taxes, as recent plunges threaten to trigger a margin call - a request for more collateral from banks for Lee's mother and his two sisters.
Shares of Samsung Electronics rose 7.2% on Friday, their biggest daily jump since March 2020 and rebounding from their lowest level since mid-June 2020. They were still down 32% year-to-date.

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Technology

Musk’s Social Media Firm X Bought by His AI Company, Valued at $33 Billion

xAI and X logos are seen in this illustration taken, March 28, 2025. (Reuters)
xAI and X logos are seen in this illustration taken, March 28, 2025. (Reuters)
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Musk’s Social Media Firm X Bought by His AI Company, Valued at $33 Billion

xAI and X logos are seen in this illustration taken, March 28, 2025. (Reuters)
xAI and X logos are seen in this illustration taken, March 28, 2025. (Reuters)

Elon Musk's xAI has acquired X in a deal that values the social media platform at $33 billion and allows the value of his artificial intelligence firm to be shared with his co-investors in the company formerly known as Twitter.

The deal could also help xAI's ability to train its chatbot known as Grok.

"xAI and X's futures are intertwined," Musk, who also heads automaker Tesla and SpaceX, wrote in a post on X: "Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent."

He said the combination values "xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt)".

Representatives for X and xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Much of the deal's specifics remain unclear, such as how X's leaders would be integrated in the new firm or whether there would be regulatory scrutiny.

Musk, the world's wealthiest man, is also a close ally of US President Donald Trump and heads the Department of Government Efficiency.

D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said the price tag for X of $45 billion when debt was included was not a coincidence. "It is $1 billion higher than the take-private transaction for Twitter in 2022."

An investor in xAI who declined to be identified said they were not surprised by the deal, viewing it as Musk consolidating his leadership and management at his own companies.

Musk did not ask investors for approval but told them that the two companies had been collaborating closely and the deal would drive deeper integration with Grok, the investor said.

OPENAI RIVALRY

Musk's xAI startup was launched less than two years ago and recently raised $10 billion in a funding round that valued the company at $75 billion, according to a media report.

It competes with the likes of Microsoft-backed OpenAI as well as with Chinese startup DeepSeek.

In February, Musk, 53, made a $97.4 billion bid with a consortium for OpenAI, which was rejected and he has sued to prevent the ChatGPT maker from converting from a non-profit to a for-profit business. A judge this month denied Musk's request for a preliminary injunction that would prevent the changeover.

As competition in AI intensifies, xAI has been ramping up its data center capacity to train more advanced models, and its supercomputer cluster in Memphis, Tennessee, called "Colossus," is touted as the largest in the world.

xAI introduced Grok-3, the latest iteration of its chatbot, in February.

The X platform could serve to further distribute xAI products, while also providing a real-time feed of users' musings, screenshots and other data.

After buying Twitter, Musk gutted the company's workforce, prompting advertisers to flee the platform and a rapid decline in revenue. Recently, brands have been returning to X as Musk's influence in the Trump administration grows.

The seven banks that extended $13 billion in loans to Musk to buy X kept the debt on their books for two years until they were able to sell it all at once last month, according to a source familiar with the transactions.

This was made possible after a surge in investor interest for exposure to AI companies along with X's improved operating performance over the previous two quarters, among other factors, according to two people familiar with the matter.

After the merger, investors who bought the debt from the banks will profit, said Espen Robak, founder of Pluris Valuation Advisors, which specializes in illiquid assets. "For sure the debt is worth more now, if not fully paid off."

Separately, a US judge on Friday rejected a bid by Musk to dismiss a lawsuit claiming he had defrauded former Twitter shareholders by waiting too long to disclose his initial investment in the company.