Infineon to return up to $419 mn to investors

FRANKFURT, GERMANY: German chipmaker Infineon plans to return up to 300 million euros ($419.1 million) to its shareholders up to March 2013 and said it might buy back up to 4 per cent of its share capital.

The company has a pile of cash thanks to the sale of its mobile chip unit to U.S. chipmaker Intel for $1.4 billion.

Based on the current price, it could repurchase up to 40 million shares in total or up to four percent of its share capital, Infineon said in a statement on Monday.

Infineon stock was up 1.1 per cent at almost 8 euros at market close in Frankfurt.

In November, Infineon said it would pay its first dividend in a decade and that it would consider a share buyback of up to 10 per cent of outstanding shares.

The company based in Neubiberg, a suburb of Munich, has said it continues to seek acquisitions but its finance chief Dominik Asam said last week attractive targets were hard to find.