Southwest Airlines ( LUV )’ management is making a case to stay in charge during its investor day Thursday , and one facet of its plan has the company’s shares surging more than 10%. Under pressure from an activist investor, the carrier authorized $2.5 billion in stock buybacks.
“Southwest is balancing its capital allocation priorities to minimize capital expenditures on aircraft, continue investing in infrastructure that optimizes operations, and manage debt to preserve the airline’s investment-grade balance sheet, all while returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases,” the company said in a statement previewing its investor day presentations.
In the background of the announcement is an activist investor campaign by the hedge fund Elliott Management. It wants to clean house and institute a comprehensive business review, having lost patience with the company’s efforts to put a period of financial difficulty in the rearview. Things like g etting rid of its legacy open-seating and open-boarding policies, among other shifts , are too little, too late , Elliott has insisted.
“Southwest’s management and board have chosen a go-it-alone path with the goal of obstructing a leadership change that is urgently needed,” the fund wrote in a recent letter to other shareholders.
But the market reaction suggests that $2.5 billion buys a lot of patience.
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