LONDON, April 7, 2026, 12:15 BST
Rolls-Royce Holdings reported Tuesday it snapped up 385 shares on April 2, paying 1,172.5 pence apiece as part of its £2.3 billion buyback plan running through 2026. The company intends to cancel the shares. The update dropped as London markets reopened following the Good Friday and Easter Monday holidays.
Rolls-Royce’s update lands at a time when buybacks have become a linchpin of its pitch to shareholders, following February’s annual results. Back then, the company committed to returning up to £2.5 billion via buybacks in 2026—a chunk of a broader £7 billion-£9 billion program stretching through 2028. The main tranche is scheduled to wrap up by Dec. 23.
Rolls-Royce has so far bought back 28.2 million shares under its programme, paying an average price of 1,218.09 pence per share. That’s around £344 million spent, covering about 14% of the repurchase goal set for this year. The latest transaction leaves the company with 8,399,632,003 ordinary shares outstanding and none held in treasury.
Rolls-Royce, which supplies engines for the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787, announced an expanded shareholder return after underlying operating profit climbed 40% to £3.46 billion for 2025. That metric, favored by the company because it excludes certain exceptional items, was bolstered by a jump in airline engine activity along with rising demand from data center and defense power systems. Rolls-Royce also lifted its 2026 outlook.
Back in February, Chief Executive Tufan Erginbilgic described Rolls-Royce’s “transformation” as moving with “pace and intensity.” The company’s stronger balance sheet, he said, lets it press ahead with the planned multiyear buyback. Speaking to Reuters, Erginbilgic also indicated that getting back into the narrow-body jet segment might hinge on public support for the UltraFan project. “It is natural that government will look to support that,” he said. Rolls-Royce
Back then, Reuters noted that Rolls-Royce’s updated margin targets would narrow the gap with GE Aerospace—its biggest competitor in big jet engines. Alongside the buyback, Rolls-Royce lifted its guidance for 2026 and set more demanding mid-term goals, pointing to improved cash flow as a way to support both shareholder payouts and expansion.
Richard Hunter, an analyst at Interactive Investor, described the February results as “sparkling,” though he noted Rolls-Royce “still had unfulfilled ambitions to maintain the momentum.” But the shares have lost ground since: at roughly 1,159 pence on Tuesday, the stock traded about 18% shy of its 1,420 pence year high. Reuters
Still, there are risks to the share buyback. Rolls-Royce flagged that its 2026 free-cash-flow target bakes in a £150 million-£200 million drag from supply-chain snags, while the buyback deals struck with Morgan Stanley and UBS include clauses letting the company call off the program under certain conditions.
Next up for investors: Rolls-Royce is set to go ex-dividend on April 23. The company’s final 5.0 pence 2025 dividend—pending a shareholder vote at the annual meeting on April 30—is slated for payment on June 3.
