*NEWS*RICOH BUYING BACK SHARES

[Anonymous]

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews/idUSSP14246520080522
Ricoh to keep buying back shares
TOKYO,
May 08 – Japanese office equipment maker Ricoh Co Ltd said it plans to
buy back about 15-20 billion yen ($146-$194 million) worth of its own
shares each year to boost shareholder returns and prepare for
acquisitions.Ricoh Chief Executive Shiro Kondo told the Reuters Global
Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in Tokyo that he aimed to bring
its North and South America business back to profitability in the
current business year to March 2009, encouraged by a strong showing
there last month.Ricoh, which competes with the likes of Xerox Corp 
and Canon in copiers and printers, posted an operating loss in the
region in the past two quarters as the economy faltered and it
struggled through a merger of its sales arms.”America did well in April
but it is too early to let our guard down with optimism that those
conditions will continue,” Kondo said. “At the very least we want to
bring it back into the black this financial year.”Ricoh bought back
about 15 billion yen worth of its own shares in the past business year
ended March 31, and Kondo said the company would look to buy its shares
back at about the same pace each year going forward.”I would expect us
to do about 15-20 billion worth a year,” he said, adding that Ricoh
could use the shares it buys back from the market as a currency for
future acquisitions.

Ricoh announced earlier this month that it
would buy out minority shareholders in subsidiary Ricoh Elemex Corp.
through a stock swap using its treasury shares.Kondo said he had no
plans to take similar action with Ricoh Leasing , another listed
subsidiary in which it owns a little under 47 percent. “We are not at
all thinking of making it a wholly-owned unit,” he said.Like other
copier and printer makers, Ricoh is looking for ways to strenghten its
business of offering document management and other services to
companies to complement its mainstay operations of selling and
maintaining office machines.Kondo mentioned Hewlett-Packard’s recently
announced plans to buy technology outsourcing company Electronic Data
Systems Corp  as an example of the direction in which his industry was
moving.”It will probably become increasingly difficult to grow without
IT network services,” Kondo said.

[Author]

May 22, 2008 at 2:51 PM