In my opinion, absolutely! If the company is a cash machine, the earnings yield of the share is higher than the required rate of return, and the cost of the loan (from which you can even deduct interest in taxes) is lower, then this is only justifiable.
EDIT: Wow, at today’s close, the company’s market cap was €11.8 billion… So if the share price didn’t react to this at all (I assume it will), the company could buy back and cancel 1/6 of its shares 
If you consider this an especially high-risk decision, then you should seriously consider exiting the lounge car by now at the latest. At a P/E level of 10 (or now around 11-12 when the money is used), I consider this a very sensible solution. On the US side, for example, FICO has been doing share buybacks with debt at a P/E level of 35 
Right, maybe I’ve caught the drift now. Still leaves me a bit cold, though. Of course, I don’t necessarily have to like it if others enjoy it enough to drive the share price up.
I’m well aware that money is coming in. That’s a different matter. It’s just that growth has been lacking. Considering the months of foreplay, I would have expected the solution to be something else.
The best-case scenario would be if the share price didn’t rise from here, but even ended up dropping. That way, the company could gather up the shares for safekeeping. Unfortunately, that’s likely wishful thinking, and tomorrow a few shorters are going to get caught with their pants down.
My initial gut feeling is that they had some big prey in the net that got away, and then they decided to use the money for buybacks instead. Considering Evolution’s M&A history, that is likely the better solution.
I like this decision a lot. I also believe that an acquisition or some other trick fell through at the last minute for one reason or another. Buying back their own shares is a significantly lower-risk move than some 1-2 billion acquisition. If we get earnings growth on top of this, it will create incredible leverage. On the other hand, there is so much expansion in the pipeline now that requires their own studios, so there are plenty of internal investment needs as it is. Margins will take a hit, but that’s just how it goes.
There is likely a lot of upward pressure on the share price in the near future, as shorters will have to reconsider their positions. At a price higher than the current level, that sum should allow them to buy back 14-16% of their own shares. It could be more or less, of course, depending on what the share price is at the time of purchase. In this thought experiment, the amount to be bought back is 15% of the total shares. The number of shares will decrease by that much. Future profits will therefore be distributed among 85% of the current number of shares. 1 / 0.85 = 1.1765, meaning EPS grows by 17.6%. There are also dividend stocks available out there, like Mandatum 
The parlor car just keeps chugging along so fast it’s hard to stay on board. 
I might have been quite happy with an acquisition of Hacksaw AB, but I don’t see any other sensible targets in the market at the moment. Hacksaw would have been very expensive, and there is no guarantee that they would remain at the top of the RNG sector in the future. In that sense, I think this massive share buyback is a very good solution.
I was chatting with an AI about Dart’s ownership stake and the mandatory takeover bid. Apparently, a takeover bid does not need to be made if the ownership stake increases passively, i.e., when shares are cancelled. However, if they acquire even one more share, they would then be forced to make a takeover bid.
Does this hold true? It’s not a very relevant point right now, but it might mean that Dart’s purchases are done for the time being.
After sleeping on it, a few question marks have arisen regarding the buyback.
Evolution has approximately 199m shares, of which the top 10 shareholders own about 112 million, leaving 87 million. If we assume the largest owners are long-term holders, the buybacks would have to be targeted at those remaining 87 million shares, which represent about 40% of the total share capital.
Assuming the share price doesn’t move in either direction, a 2 billion buyback program would be enough to cover about 1/6 of the total share capital, which is nearly half of the shares held outside the top 10 owners.
A buyback program of this magnitude seems quite challenging for creating shareholder value if the major owners are not on the sell side. One wonders if this is primarily Kenneth’s way of taking control of an even larger stake in the company without the obligation to make a mandatory takeover bid.
Considering how long this matter was chewed over, one could imagine that the decision might not necessarily have been entirely unanimous.
There is likely also the logic that shares bought at a low price can be held, up to 10% of the total share capital, to be used as payment instead of cash in future acquisitions.
I believe this has already been discussed a couple of times in the thread, but exactly so. No need to make a takeover bid if one doesn’t buy more.
Most certainly. It is very natural that he wishes the best for the company he owns a large stake in, but generally pursues his own best interest.
At some point, share buybacks as a form of profit distribution must likely stop if there are no sellers and the price escapes. Fundamentally, it’s not worth buying back shares automatically from here to eternity regardless of the price. Then profit distribution would likely be 100% dividends.
I expect the repurchased shares will be cancelled immediately.
I suspect the exact same thing. Could it have been Hacksaw, before their share price got out of hand?
Last week’s batch of share buybacks was 144,529 shares at a price of 702 SEK. This is going to turn out well.
Based on my interpretation, that 144,529 is only the number of shares purchased on Friday, May 22nd. The total amount of buybacks for the entire week was 535,802, which was executed in the batches shown below. The total value is approximately €35.09M (at the May 25th exchange rate), which is about 1.75% of the €2,000M reserved for the share buyback program. So, on a weekly level, my interpretation is that purchases should continue at least at the same level if the program is to be fully implemented over the next 365 days.
Feel free to correct me if necessary.
Evolution AB (publ) (“Evolution”) has, during the period 25 May 2026 - 29 May 2026, acquired a total of 692,185 own shares within the framework of the repurchase program introduced by the board of directors to optimize the capital structure of Evolution by reducing the capital, and thereby creating added shareholder value.
It’s actually better if the share price stays in check. They’ve been buying 135k–142k shares per day. This is a pretty intense pace for buybacks, as at the current price, they are retiring about 0.35% of the total shares in a week and around 1.4% in a month.
