FCA regulated online CFDs broker Plus500 Ltd (LON:PLUS) has continued to make purchases of its own stock pursuant to a recently announced share buyback.
The company announced that last week it acquired a total of 30,455 PLUS shares, at an average share price of £12.744, for a layout of £388,119. That brings the grand total of shares acquired to date under the current program to 38,610, for a total cost of just over £493,000 (USD $634,000).
Plus500 had announced its plans to buy back up to £10 million worth of its own stock when the company released its (partial) financials results for Q3-2018 in late October.
Plus500’s share price has come down significantly, by about 40%, since topping £20 in early August (see graph below). After an absolute blowout Q1 which saw Plus500 generate $297 million in Revenue and $237 million of EBITDA – driven largely by growing client interest in cryptocurrency trading – the company saw a decline with Q2 Revenues of $168 million and Q3 Revenue of $100 million. Q3 in particular at Plus500 was hit by new rules enacted as of August 1 by European regulator ESMA, limiting leverage on FX and CFD products (30x) and crypto (2x) trading, putting a major damper on client trading volumes at Plus500 and other leading online CFD brokers.
Plus500’s share price decline has seen a number of institutional investors take the opportunity to step in and buy shares of the company. During September investment giant Blackrock picked up a 7% stake in Plus500, and Luxembourg private label fund manager Axxion acquired a 5% position, as was exclusively reported by LeapRate.
Plus500 one year share price graph. Source: Google.