Southwest says plans to repurchase $2.25B of stock this year

Southwest (LUV) executives stated on the company’s earnings call: “We are taking immediate actions to accelerate as much of the $500M of targeted cost savings into 2025 as possible, and we will report on our progress as we go. Finally, we have tremendous confidence in the plan and are excited about the future of Southwest. We plan to repurchase $2.25B of stock this year, or approximately 12% of our market cap at current prices. We expect this to be very accretive for our investors as we work to deliver our Southwest even better plan, including our North Star goal to achieve after-tax ROI or ROIC of at least 15% in 2027.” The company continues to plan for the launch of an additional $750M ASR program later this quarter and said “assuming trends continue as expected,” it plans to complete repurchases of the remaining $1.5B available under it share repurchase authorization in 2025.