Samsung Electronics is set to announce next week a three-year plan to buy back shares, which is anticipated to be the largest backed by the tech giant’s thriving chip business.

The tech giant will also announce its third-quarter profit and plans for cash dividends for 2018-2020.
 

Last year, the company said it would spend 50 percent of its net profits to increase its share value and return the benefits to its investors. Of the 22.4 trillion won of net profits generated last year, Samsung paid nearly 4 trillion won of cash dividends, bought 7.2 trillion won worth of shares back and canceled them.

Considering the scale of its shareholder friendly program conducted last year, which was half of its net profits, Samsung Electronics is expected to double the scale of the program, in accordance with its record profit this year.

The market expects the South Korean conglomerate to report more than 40 trillion won in net profit, and more than 50 trillion won next year and in 2019.

In the first half of this year, Samsung returned 6 trillion won of dividends and buy-back drive.

But under its plan, the company has to spend some 13 trillion won more in the second half to keep the ratio the same as last year’s.

Samsung Electronics said it is expecting another record-breaking third-quarter operating profit, 14.5 trillion won between July and Sept., buoyed by a global semiconductor super cycle. The company plans to finalize the report on Oct. 31.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)