Dell Authorized to Buy Back $10 Billion in Stock

Elise Amendola / AP

Dell is reviving plans to buy back shares in the company and will begin to repurchase $10 billion in common stock this week, chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell said.

Dell had suspended its buyback program in August 2006 until it could file a backlog of earnings reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Chief Financial Officer Don Carty said there was no timeframe for the repurchase plan. He said the company has $15 billion in cash and is generating another $1 billion per quarter that could be put toward the repurchase.

As of Oct. 19, Dell had about 2.24 billion shares outstanding.

"Dell is committed to a long-term share repurchase program as part of an overall capital allocation plan that supports growth and also returns value to shareholders," Dell said in a statement.

At a shareholders meeting Tuesday in Round Rock, Texas, investors also approved several measures, including:

--The election of Carty and 10 other directors;

--A shareholder proposal regarding executive stock ownership guidelines; and

--The selection of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as Dell's independent auditor for fiscal 2008.

The company's delayed restatements, filed in October, reduced profits by $92 million for fiscal years 2003 through 2006, as well as the first quarter of fiscal 2007. The restatements were the result of an internal accounting probe, which found employees had misled auditors and manipulated results to meet performance goals.

Dell shares , which have ranged from $21.61 to $30.77 in the past year, were down less than 1 percent Tuesday.

The stock fell as much as 15 percent last week after Dell reported lower-than-expected third-quarter profit margins and warned that rising costs could depress future earnings.

The company is facing greater competition from Asian rivals including Acer and Lenovo Group, as well as market leader Hewlett-Packard.

In June, Dell began to sell PCs in retail stores for the first time after 23 years of direct-only sales via the telephone or Internet.

-- Reuters contributed to this report.

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