CFDs broker Plus500 has gotten off to a somewhat slow start to its recently announced share buyback program.

In parallel with its 1H-2020 earnings announcement made in early August – which included record six month net profit of $320 million – Plus500 indicated that it was going to return some of that capital to shareholders in the form of share buybacks of up to $67.3 million. The buyback plan is to run through to the end of February 2021.

FNG calculations based on regulatory filings which Plus500 has made in recent days indicates that the company bought back a total of 266,132 shares during August, at an average price of 1,472p per share. That comes to a grand total of £3.92 million, or USD $5.25 million.

For Plus500 to reach its $67.3 million target it will need to average monthly purchases of about double that rate, or about $10.34 million, between now and the end of February.

Since its IPO in 2013 Plus500 has returned more than $1 billion to shareholders ($1.0864 billion, to be more precise), of which $923.2 million was through dividend payments and $163.2 million was through share buybacks.

All of Plus500’s latest share purchases have been made via Credit Suisse. The purchases have been made as follows: