Microsoft unveils $60 billion stock buyback plan, appoints Brad Smith as Vice Chair

American technology corporation Microsoft announced plans to buy back up to $60 billion in stock. Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley shares the details.

Video transcript

- Let's start with Microsoft for a second because not a cool tech announcement, but an important money announcement coming from Microsoft. It's going to do a new buyback authorization of up to $60 billion. I believe this is similar to their former-- their prior buyback plan. But still, shareholders tend to like it when they get cash back.

- Yes. And they're also raising their dividend by $0.06 to $0.62. So, you know, this is obviously a move on their part to ensure that investors remain happy, also pull back some of their shares. And, you know, how they're going to be doing it, they have a huge stockpile of money that they've been using recently for acquisitions. So they'll be able to dip into that. But it also could have to do with the timing of two-- or rather, a proposal by some Democrats who want to put a tax on some of those buybacks. And that could be part of the reason why we're seeing this.

You also have Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, who really deals with a lot of some of the policies that the company deals with as well as the legal aspect of it because he was general counsel. He is now going to be vice president of the company. But he's not going to be on the board, not going to be a director of the board or anything along those lines. So a bump for him as well. So big news going on there. They are the second largest or most valuable publicly traded company that we have in the US and the largest software maker in the world. So a big move on their part for that new dividend.

- Yeah. And those shares up a little bit more than 1% on that news. Thanks, Dan.