Toyota Motor Corp. said it will buy back stock for the first time in five years as its cash pile swells and profit climbs.Toyota will repurchase as many as 60 million shares, equivalent to a 1.9 percent stake, for 360 billion yen ($3.5 billion), according to a statement Tuesday. The company, which last bought back stock in February 2009, plans to retire about half of those shares by the end of June.
Toyota’s growing cash pile fueled calls from the likes of Takaki Nakanishi, Institutional Investor magazine’s top-ranked Japanese auto analyst, for the company to return money to shareholders or invest in new factories. The maker of the Camry sedans and Prius hybrids has forecast a record 1.9 trillion yen profit for the year ending March 31.
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