Royal Bank of Canada to repurchase up to 30 million of its common shares

TORONTO, June 10, 2024 /CNW/ – Royal Bank of Canada (the Bank) (TSX: RY) (NYSE: RY) today announced that the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) have approved its normal course issuer bid to purchase, for cancellation, up to 30 million of its common shares.

Purchases under the normal course issuer bid may commence on June 12, 2024 and continue until June 11, 2025, when the bid expires, or such earlier date as the Bank may complete its purchases pursuant to the notice of intention filed with the TSX. Purchases may be made through the facilities of the TSX, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and other designated exchanges and alternative Canadian trading systems. The price paid for any such repurchased shares will be the prevailing market price at the time of acquisition.

The maximum number of shares that may be repurchased for cancellation represents approximately 2.12% of the 1,415,074,558 common shares issued and outstanding as at May 31, 2024. The amount of purchases on the TSX on any given day will not exceed 1,255,946 common shares, which is 25% of the average daily trading volume on the TSX for the six months ending May 31, 2024. The average daily trading volume of the Bank’s shares on the TSX for that six-month period, calculated in accordance with the rules of the TSX for the purposes of the bid, was 5,023,785 shares.

The normal course issuer bid will give us the flexibility to manage the Bank’s capital position while generating shareholder value.

The Bank will establish an automatic share purchase plan on June 12, 2024, under which its broker, RBC Dominion Securities Inc., may periodically purchase its common shares pursuant to the bid within a defined set of criteria. The actual number of common shares purchased under the automatic share purchase plan, the timing of purchases, and the price at which the common shares are bought will depend upon future market conditions.

Caution regarding forward-looking statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of certain securities laws, including the “safe harbour” provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and any applicable Canadian securities legislation, with respect to RBC’s beliefs, plans, expectations and estimates. Forward-looking statements in this press release may include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the normal course issuer bid by Royal Bank of Canada. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as “believe”, “expect”, “suggest”, “seek”, “foresee”, “forecast”, “schedule”, “anticipate”, “intend”, “estimate”, “goal”, “commit”, “target”, “objective”, “plan”, “outlook”, “timeline” and “project” and similar expressions of future or conditional verbs such as “will”, “may”, “might”, “should”, “could”, “can” or “would” or negative or grammatical variations thereof.

By their very nature, forward-looking statements require us to make assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific in nature, which give rise to the possibility that our predictions, forecasts, projections, expectations or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that our assumptions may not be correct, that our forward-looking statements, including statements about the proposed normal course issuer bid by Royal Bank of Canada, will not be achieved and that our actual results may differ materially from such predictions, forecasts, projections, expectations or conclusions.

We caution readers not to place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements as a number of risk factors could cause our actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements. These factors – many of which are beyond our control and the effects of which can be difficult to predict – include: credit, market, liquidity and funding, insurance, operational, regulatory compliance (which could lead to us being subject to various legal and regulatory proceedings, the potential outcome of which could include regulatory restrictions, penalties and fines), strategic, reputation, legal and regulatory environment, competitive, model, systemic risks and other risks discussed in the risk sections of our annual report for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2023 (the 2023 Annual Report) and the Risk management section of our Q2 2024 Report to Shareholders, including business and economic conditions in the geographic regions in which we operate, Canadian housing and household indebtedness, information technology, cyber and third-party risks, geopolitical uncertainty, environmental and social risk (including climate change), digital disruption and innovation, privacy and data related risks, regulatory changes, culture and conduct risks, the effects of changes in government fiscal, monetary and other policies, tax risk and transparency, and our ability to anticipate and successfully manage risks arising from all of the foregoing factors. Additional factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations in such forward-looking statements can be found in the risk sections of our 2023 Annual Report and the Risk management section of our Q2 2024 Report to Shareholders, as may be updated by subsequent quarterly reports.

We caution that the foregoing list of risk factors is not exhaustive and other factors could also adversely affect our results. When relying on our forward-looking statements to make decisions with respect to us, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events, as well as the inherent uncertainty of forward-looking statements. Material economic assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are set out in the Economic, market and regulatory review and outlook section and for each business segment under the Strategic priorities and Outlook headings in our 2023 Annual Report, as updated by the Economic, market and regulatory review and outlook section of our Q2 2024 Report to Shareholders. Such sections may be updated by subsequent quarterly reports.

Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release represent the views of RBC only as of the date hereof. Except as required by law, RBC does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf.

SOURCE Royal Bank of Canada