repurchase

verb

re·​pur·​chase (ˌ)rē-ˈpər-chəs 

repurchased; repurchasing

transitive verb

: to buy (something) back or again

… some enterprises moving workloads to the cloud won't have to repurchase software they already own.

—Kurt Marko

especially, of a corporation : to purchase back (shares of one's own common stock) on the open market

The company last winter repaid $405 million of debt, repurchased $202 million in common stock and predicted that sales will rise between 3 and 5 percent this year.

—Jeremiah McWilliams

repurchase noun

plural repurchases

… pointed to the trend of share repurchases, or stock buybacks, emerging among major companies … . As they buy back millions, if not billions, of their shares, their supply of stock grows tighter … and their shareholders usually benefit.

—Elizabeth Gurdus

Examples of repurchase in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The raising of that amount of capital could allow PSX to repurchase between 60% and 90% of the company’s shares outstanding and increase the payout ratio to 100% of free cash flow like its refining peers. —Kenneth Squire, CNBC, 15 Feb. 2025

The company declared common stock dividends of $2.90 per share, totaling $859 million, and repurchased approximately $1.3 billion of its common stock. —Quartz Intelligence Newsroom, Quartz, 13 Feb. 2025

The German city and the legal heirs of the painting, which once belonged to the Jewish shoe manufacturer Alfred Hess, were able to come to an amicable solution for the restitution and then repurchase of the Expressionist painting, which is one of the museum’s most precious holdings. —The Editors Of Artnews, ARTnews.com, 11 Feb. 2025

Chief Financial Officer Rob O’Hare told CNBC that Affirm’s earnings were boosted by a $60 million gain from a deal in December, when the company repurchased some of its convertible debt at a discount. —Mackenzie Sigalos, CNBC, 6 Feb. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1533, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing repurchase

• repurchase agreement

Legal Definition

repurchase

1 of 2 transitive verb

re·​pur·​chase

ˌrē-ˈpər-chəs

repurchased; repurchasing

: to buy back

repurchase shares of stock

repurchase

2 of 2 noun

: the act or an instance of purchasing something again or back

specifically : a corporation's buying back of some of its stock at market price (as to increase the amount of Treasury stock or as a preliminary step to going private)