Bajaj Auto has filed a notice with BSE and NSE today, informing the exchanges that its Board of Directors will meet on May 6, 2026, to consider a proposal for the buyback of fully paid-up equity shares of the company. The trading window has already been shut since April 1 and will remain closed until May 8 — a standard insider trading compliance measure ahead of such corporate actions.
What makes this filing notable is the frequency and scale of Bajaj Auto’s capital return programme. This will be the company’s third buyback in approximately four years — a cadence that signals a management deeply committed to returning surplus cash to shareholders rather than hoarding capital on the balance sheet.
Bajaj Auto’s most recent buyback before this was the open market route offering in July 2022, at ₹4,600 per share, through which the company bought back 54 lakh shares aggregating approximately 9.6% of paid-up capital. That was followed by a larger tender offer buyback in January 2024, approved at ₹10,000 per share for an aggregate amount not exceeding ₹4,000 crore — its biggest buyback by value at the time — with a record date of February 29, 2024.
Now, with Bajaj Auto’s stock trading significantly higher than the ₹10,000 per share price of its last buyback, a May 2026 buyback would almost certainly come at a substantially higher price — potentially making it the company’s most valuable buyback by both absolute size and per-share offer price. Bajaj Auto has consistently generated strong free cash flows, and with the global two-wheeler export cycle holding up and domestic volumes robust, the balance sheet has the capacity to support a meaningful capital return.
For retail investors, Bajaj Auto’s buybacks have historically been executed via the tender offer route — which means a SEBI-mandated 15% reservation for small shareholders and a premium to prevailing market prices. The May 6 board meeting is one to watch closely.