Companies

Grafton Group shifts focus from buybacks to M&A

The company’s outgoing chairman was questioned by Michael Chadwick, one of his predecessors, at the AGM

Michael Roney, outgoing chairman of Grafton Group plc, at the group’s AGM at the Irish Management Institute in Sandyford, Dublin. Picture: Gareth Chaney

The talk at last week’s Grafton Group AGM was very much around share buybacks and M&A.

The company’s fourth share buyback programme, which launched in August last year, was completed at the end of April, and involved the repurchase of 11.1 million ordinary shares at an average price of £9.02 per share.

Additional cash of £343.3 million was returned to shareholders through share buybacks completed between May 2022 and April 2024.

However, when questioned by ...