By Paul Taylor; The Financial Times ~ Jul 29, 2012

The board of AT&T, the largest US telecoms group by revenue, authorized the repurchase of up to 300m additional shares, representing about 5 per cent of the company’s outstanding stock. Based on the closing price on Friday, the shares would be worth $11.1bn.

Randall Stephenson, chief executive, said by gaining approval from the board, AT&T would be able “to continue returning cash to our shareholders through dividends and buybacks while maintaining a strong balance sheet and investing in the future of our business”.

The buyback is in addition to the 300m share repurchase approved by AT&T’s board in December 2010. Since then AT&T, which also announced strong second-quarter results last week, said it had repurchased 143.5m shares for about $4.6bn as of the end of June this year.

Including dividends, AT&T said it has returned almost $10bn to investors in the first half of 2012.

AT&T, which is in the middle of building a new high-speed mobile data network based on LTE technology, reported an 8.7 per cent increase in second quarter net income. The company was aided by strong results from its mobile unit, which recorded a big gain in average revenues per subscriber and a jump in operating margins

Although the mobile unit added fewer net new monthly subscribers than in the year-ago quarter, this meant AT&T spent less on smartphone subsidies, boosting profits.

AT&T’s shares are up 23 per cent this year, and gained 2.3 per cent to $37.14 on Friday ahead of the repurchase announcement.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.