Japan Tobacco: to Buy Back Only Some Shares if Govt Sells

Source from:  Reuters 09/28/2011

TOKYO, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Japan Tobacco said on Tuesday it may buy back some but not all shares if the government decides to sell part of its stake in the cigarette maker to raise funds for rebuilding after the March earthquake and tsunami. There has been speculation that Japan Tobacco, the world's third-largest cigarette maker, could buy all the shares the government might sell to prevent declines in its stock price. Telephone company NTT , a former government monopoly, has bought all the shares sold by the government in recent years. Ruling Democratic party politicians have indicated they are looking to offload some of the government's 50 percent stake in Japan Tobacco. " We are always hoping that the government will sell all its shares in JT. We don't know in which form or in how many tranches the shares are to be sold," Masakazu Shimizu, an executive deputy president at Japan Tobacco, told reporters. "We would buy back some of the shares in order to prevent excessive fluctuations in our stock price but we have not said that we would buy all the shares to be sold." The government's holding in Japan Tobacco has already come down to the legal minimum and any sale would need revisions to the law. Shimizu also reiterated that the company was opposed to cigarette tax hikes and said that it would have to look at raising prices if that happened. Japan's government has proposed tax hikes worth around $146 billion to help fund rebuilding. Proposals include income, corporate and sales tax increases as well as hikes for taxes on tobacco, alcohol and gasoline. Enditem