Sagi­cor Fi­nan­cial an­nounced yes­ter­day that the Toron­to Stock Ex­change has ac­cept­ed the re­gion­al in­sur­ance com­pa­ny’s re­new­al of its share buy­back pro­gramme.

Through the pro­gramme, Sagi­cor may pur­chase up to 8,840,727 of its com­mon shares dur­ing the 12-month pe­ri­od com­menc­ing June 24, 2023 and end­ing June 23, 2024.

The com­pa­ny had 142,564,230 is­sued and out­stand­ing com­mon shares as of June 14, 2023, the com­pa­ny said in a news re­lease is­sued to the Toron­to Stock Ex­change, where Sagi­cor has been list­ed since 2019.

Un­der the share buy­back pro­gramme, Sagi­cor may pur­chase its own shares on the open mar­ket through the fa­cil­i­ties of the Toron­to Stock Ex­change and/or al­ter­na­tive Cana­di­an trad­ing sys­tems at the mar­ket price at the time of ac­qui­si­tion, as well as by oth­er means as may be per­mit­ted by TSX rules and ap­plic­a­ble se­cu­ri­ties laws.

How­ev­er, Sagi­cor may es­tab­lish a max­i­mum price and/or max­i­mum block trade size from time to time, ac­cord­ing to the news re­lease.

In con­nec­tion with the re­new­al of its share buy­back pro­gramme, Sagi­cor al­so ex­tend­ed the term of its au­to­mat­ic share pur­chase plan (“ASPP”) in re­la­tion to pur­chas­es made in con­nec­tion with the pro­gramme. This would al­low the com­pa­ny to re­pur­chase its shares, un­der the pro­gramme, when Sagi­cor would or­di­nar­i­ly not be per­mit­ted to pur­chase shares due to reg­u­la­to­ry re­stric­tions and cus­tom­ary self-im­posed black­out pe­ri­ods.

Un­der the ASPP, Sagi­cor will pro­vide in­struc­tions dur­ing the non-black­out pe­ri­ods to its des­ig­nat­ed bro­ker, which in­struc­tions may not be var­ied or sus­pend­ed dur­ing the ap­plic­a­ble black­out pe­ri­od.

Pur­chas­es by Sagi­cor’s des­ig­nat­ed bro­ker will be in ac­cor­dance with stock ex­change rules, ap­plic­a­ble se­cu­ri­ties laws and the terms of the ASPP, and all pur­chas­es made un­der the ASPP will be in­clud­ed in com­put­ing the num­ber of shares pur­chased un­der the pro­gramme.

In its first quar­ter 2023 fi­nan­cial re­port, for the pe­ri­od end­ing March 31, 2023, Sagi­cor said since the start of the pro­gramme in June 2020, the com­pa­ny re­pur­chased 8,180,337 shares in the open mar­ket for can­cel­la­tion for an ag­gre­gate pur­chase price of ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$39.4 mil­lion. The num­ber of is­sued and out­stand­ing com­mon shares as at March 31, 2023 was 142,702,568.

The share buy­back pro­gramme, for­mal­ly called a Nor­mal Course Is­suer Bid (NCIB), is reg­u­lat­ed by the On­tario Se­cu­ri­ties Com­mis­sion and the TSX.

Sagi­cor list­ed on the Toron­to Stock Ex­change on De­cem­ber 5, 2019, start­ed trad­ing at C$9.14 and briefly peaked at C$10. Yes­ter­day, Sagi­cor trad­ed at C$4.65.

An­dre Mousseau was ap­point­ed as pres­i­dent and CEO of the Sagi­cor group ear­li­er this year fol­low­ing the re­tire­ment of Do­dridge Miller.