Shares in Independent News & Media have lost some 20 per cent since May but the company's attempts to convince investors that they are undervalued have fallen on deaf ears to date.
The media group has been putting its money where its mouth is, going into the market four times over the past three weeks to buy shares at prices between €1.75 and €1.95. To date, it has spent around €5.3 million mopping up 2.85 million shares or nearly 0.5 per cent of the share capital.
The recent purchases follow a similar move in February when Independent bought one million shares at prices between €1.70 and €1.80, only to sell them back into the market in April at a price of €2.15 per share.
However, Independent's signals to shareholders appear to have been drowned out by the din of collapsing global stock markets. Investors, still smarting from the shock of accounting scandals, remain securely on the sidelines, waiting for stock markets worldwide to settle down.
More particularly, in the case of Independent, investors appear to be holding fire to see if the hoped-for pick-up in advertising revenue emerges in the second half.
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