UPDATED 07:13 EDT / JULY 25 2011

HP’s Stock Buyback becomes Part of Restructure Strategy

Electronics giant Hewlett-Packard said in a regulatory filing that its board of directors approved the buyback of $10 billion of its stock, in order to help boost declining shares on the short-run. This comes in addition to another $10 billion buyback plan announced last year, which still has $5.9 billion worth to be repurchased as of April 30.

The company also announced a cash dividend of 12 cents per share, which will be paid to shareholders of record as of September 14 on October 5.

“Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Officer Leo Apotheker is looking for ways to boost shareholder returns amid a flagging stock price. The shares, down 14 percent this year, rose 95 cents, or 2.7, percent to $36.23 today in New York Stock Exchange trading.”

This decline started when former chief executive Mark Hurd left office following a sexual harassment scandal. An internal investigation could not confirm these allegations, though Hurd, who managed to drive HP’s profit up and carry out a number of acquisitions, was eventually dismissed due to some inaccurate expense reports he submitted.

Bloomberg’s Tom Giles highlighted in an interview that current CEO Leo Apotheker will need to address his company’s stock on the long run by delivering value. Apotheker hopes to achieve that by expanding into mobile with webOS, as well as by building up a cloud and big data offerings portfolio.

HP plans on installing webOS, the mobile platform it acquired as part of the Palm deal, on every device it will make. For now however, the TouchPad is the only part of that plan that have been realized. Hewlett-Packard has long-term plans for the tablet, based on analysis that there’s “breathing room” under the hood, meaning the company plans on rolling out the next version soon, as tablet competition intensifies.


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