Facebook to buy back shares for first time

said it will buy back as much as US$6 billion in shares, its first repurchase program, in a bid to appease shareholders awaiting the results of big investments in potentially risky new growth areas.

The buyback involves Class A common stock and will start in the first quarter of 2017, the company said in a regulatory filing. Facebook has $26 billion in cash and marketable securities and is deploying some of that for buybacks while still planning to increase its spending on growing the business.

Facebook shares rose almost one per cent in afterhours trading Friday, following the news. The company joins a growing group of big U.S. technology firms using buybacks to keep shareholders happy. The boom in digital advertising has left Facebook and Google with billions in cash and investors often complain if that’s not being put to profitable use.

It’s not that Facebook has run out of places to invest. The company has said that 2017 will be a year of increased spending, especially on hiring engineers and expanding its infrastructure. The buybacks could to help return value to shareholders.

Facebook’s shares outstanding have increased as it compensates employees through stock options. The company has 2.9 billion shares trading, up from just over two billion in 2012, according to Bloomberg.

Earlier this week, the company said it had discovered several mistakes in its reporting of metrics to partners and advertisers and vowed to be more transparent.

The social-networking company conducted a broad review after discovering three months ago that it had overstated how long people watched videos on its site. Now, Facebook says it has found four other instances where it miscalculated, including overstating how long people spent reading Instant Articles and how many people interacted with businesses’ Facebook Pages.