Ahold to buy back two billion euro in shares

Extra purchase thanks to Scandinavian
divestment

Earlier this year Ahold sold 60% of its
participation in Scandinavian sector colleague ICA to co-owner Hakon Invest for
2.5 billion euro. The sales had been taken
into account: in 2012 Ahold had already decided to leave ICA when it could not
get complete control of the chain.

A number of analysts already expected Ahold to use
that money to buy its own shares. A drop of the number of shares in circulation
causes future profits to be divided among less titles, causing the other shares
to rise in value. At the same time however chances for a major takeover diminish significantly. Some analysts believed Ahold was planning on taking over American retailer Harris Teeter, but that has become unlikely now.

Most analysts expected Ahold to reserve 1 to 1.8
billion euro for the purchase. In February of this year Ahold already announced
a buyback of its own shares for about 500 million euro spread across about 12
months. In the end the number is even higher: before the end of 2014 Ahold will buy back two billion euro of its own shares. This would mean that the company would be buying about a sixth of its own value.