GrafTech International Ltd. announced that a majority stockholder, an affiliate of Brookfield Business Partners LP, a publicly listed business services and industrials company of Brookfield Asset Management Inc., has launched a Rule 144 secondary block trade to sell 11.18 million shares of the company’s common stock to Morgan Stanley.
Subject to the completion of the block trade, GrafTech will repurchase from the selling stockholder $250 million of common stock at a per share price equal to the price per share payable by the broker-dealer in the block trade. The company expects to fund the share repurchase from cash on hand.
GrafTech's decision to repurchase its shares is consistent with management's stated intent regarding potential uses of cash flow.
"GrafTech is pleased to announce the repurchase of a meaningful amount of its shares in-line with GrafTech's capital allocation strategy,” CEO David Rintoul said in a statement. “As we’ve previously indicated, we view share repurchases as a tax-efficient and accretive use of cash."
GrafTech is a manufacturer of high quality graphite electrode products essential to the production of electric arc furnace steel and other ferrous and non-ferrous metals.
