Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc., a mortgage investor that has seen its stock cut in half since June, said Thursday it plans to buy back 5 million of its shares, throwing a bone to dinged investors.
“Due to the large price drop in our common stock,” a buyback is “prudent and accretive to earnings,” said Joseph R. Tomkinson, Impac’s chief executive.
Impac is a real estate investment trust that buys and sells home mortgages. It pays most of its profits to shareholders as dividends.
The company has felt the sting of a souring on mortgage companies on Wall Street. Fears about rising interest rates, shrinking profits, a housing market shift and risky loans has played out in the shares of Impac and other companies.
In August, JMP Securities downgraded Impac for the second time this year.
Impac counts a market value of about $725 million.
