TORONTO, Dec. 6, 2021 /CNW/ - Royal Bank of Canada (the Bank) ("RY" on TSX and NYSE) today
announced that the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the Office of
the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) have approved
its normal course issuer bid to purchase, for cancellation, up to
45 million of its common shares.
Purchases under the normal course issuer bid may commence on
December 8, 2021 and continue until
December 7, 2022, when the bid
expires, or such earlier date as the Bank may complete its
purchases pursuant to the notice of intention filed with the TSX.
Purchases may be made through the facilities of the TSX, the New
York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and other designated exchanges and
alternative Canadian trading systems. The price paid for any such
repurchased shares will be the prevailing market price at the time
of acquisition.
The maximum number of shares that may be repurchased for
cancellation represents approximately 3.16% of the 1,425,279,101
common shares issued and outstanding as at November 26, 2021. The amount of purchases on the
TSX on any given day will not exceed 848,650 common shares, which
is 25% of the average daily trading volume on the TSX for the six
months ending November 30, 2021. The
average daily trading volume of the Bank's shares on the TSX for
that six-month period, calculated in accordance with the rules of
the TSX for the purposes of the bid, was 3,394,600 shares.
The normal course issuer bid will give us the flexibility to
manage the Bank's capital position while generating shareholder
value.
The Bank will establish an automatic share purchase plan on
December 8, 2021, under which its
broker, RBC Dominion Securities Inc., may periodically purchase its
common shares pursuant to the bid within a defined set of criteria.
The actual number of common shares purchased under the automatic
share purchase plan, the timing of purchases, and the price at
which the common shares are bought will depend upon future market
conditions.
The Bank's previous normal course issuer bid for the purchase of
20,000,000 shares commenced on March 2, 2020 and expired on
March 1, 2021. The Bank repurchased
400,000 shares under such bid on the open market at a volume
weighted average price of approximately $98.74 per share. In accordance with OSFI's
announcement on March 13, 2020 of its
expectation that banks not undertake share buybacks as part of the
measures put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bank did
not repurchase any shares under the bid from March 13, 2020 through to its expiry.
Caution regarding forward-looking statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may be deemed
to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of certain
securities laws, including the "safe harbour" provisions of the
United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995 and any applicable Canadian securities legislation. These
forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to,
statements with respect to the normal course issuer bid by Royal
Bank of Canada. Forward-looking
statements are typically identified by words such as "believe",
"expect", "foresee", "forecast", "anticipate", "intend",
"estimate", "goal", "plan" and "project" and similar expressions of
future or conditional verbs such as "will", "may", "should",
"could" or "would".
By their very nature, forward-looking statements require us to
make assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and
uncertainties, which give rise to the possibility that our
predictions, forecasts, projections, expectations or conclusions
will not prove to be accurate, that our assumptions may not be
correct and that our forward-looking statements, including
statements about the proposed normal course issuer bid by Royal
Bank of Canada, will not be
achieved. We caution readers not to place undue reliance on these
statements as a number of risk factors could cause our actual
results to differ materially from the expectations expressed in
such forward-looking statements. These factors – many of which are
beyond our control and the effects of which can be difficult to
predict – include: credit, market, liquidity and funding,
insurance, operational, regulatory compliance (which could lead to
us being subject to various legal and regulatory proceedings, the
potential outcome of which could include regulatory restrictions,
penalties and fines), strategic, reputation, competitive, legal and
regulatory environment, and systemic risks and other risks
discussed in the risk sections and Impact of COVID-19 pandemic
section of our annual report for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2021 (the 2021 Annual Report);
including business and economic conditions, information technology
and cyber risks, environmental and social risk (including climate
change), digital disruption and innovation, Canadian housing and
household indebtedness, geopolitical uncertainty, privacy, data and
third-party related risks, regulatory changes, culture and conduct,
the effects of changes in government fiscal, monetary and other
policies, tax risk and transparency, environmental and social risk,
and the emergence of widespread health emergencies or public health
crises such as pandemics and epidemics, including the COVID-19
pandemic and its impact on the global economy and financial market
conditions and our business operations, and financial results,
condition and objectives. In addition, as we work to advance our
climate goals, external factors outside of RBC's reasonable control
may act as constraints on their achievement, including varying
decarbonization efforts across economies, the need for thoughtful
climate policies around the world, more and better data, reasonably
supported methodologies, and technological advancements, the
evolution of consumer behavior, the challenges of balancing interim
emissions goals with an orderly and just transition, and other
significant considerations such as legal and regulatory
obligations.
We caution that the foregoing list of risk factors is not
exhaustive and other factors could also adversely affect our
results. When relying on our forward-looking statements to make
decisions with respect to us, investors and others should carefully
consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and
potential events. Material economic assumptions underlying the
forward looking-statements contained in this press release are set
out in the Economic, market and regulatory review and outlook
section and for each business segment under the Strategic
priorities and Outlook headings in our 2021 Annual Report. Except
as required by law, we do not undertake to update any
forward-looking statement contained in this press release.
Additional information about these and other factors can be
found in the risk sections and Impact of COVID-19 pandemic section
of our 2021 Management's Discussion and Analysis.
SOURCE Royal Bank of Canada