On the Call: Yahoo CFO discusses buying back stock after company spent $385M on shares in 1Q

On the Call: Yahoo CFO Tim Morse

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Yahoo Inc.’s management has been feeling more optimistic about the Internet company’s turnaround efforts than many investors. That’s one reason the company bought 24.8 million of its common shares at an average price of $15.54 per share in the first quarter.

The $385 million outlay during the first three months of the year was more than Yahoo spent buying back its stock in 2008 and 2009 combined.

Yahoo wants to own more of its shares to help offset the dilution caused by awarding its employees stock options.

But the company also sensed it was getting a bargain. The investment has looked smart so far, with Yahoo shares closing Tuesday at $18.38 before falling more than 3.5 percent in extended trading.

Tim Morse, Yahoo’s chief financial officer, discussed the company’s approach to stock repurchases in response to an analyst’s question on a Tuesday conference call.

QUESTION: The (stock) buyback … is that we should be thinking as a quarterly pace for you guys?

ANSWER: What you saw in the first quarter is we had a great opportunity to buy the stock at prices that we thought were terrific. That felt like the right thing to do. We are going to be looking opportunistically to buy back stock where we see a great deal. (I’m) not going to tip our hand in terms of quarterly run rates or anything like that because it defeats our purpose. But you can definitely look for us to always be opportunistic in this regard.