🧾 What This Document Is

This is a press release filed with the SEC by the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank). It announces that regulators have approved a new plan for the bank to buy back some of its own shares from the open market. This is a standard way for companies to return capital to shareholders.

🏢 What The Company Does

Scotiabank is one of Canada's "Big Five" banks and a major North American financial institution. 👉 In simple terms, it's a huge bank that makes money by lending, managing investments, and providing financial services to individuals and businesses. It has about $1.5 trillion in total assets.

💰 The Buyback in Numbers

The key numbers from the announcement:

New Program: Approved to repurchase up to 15 million common shares.
Previous Program: Just finished buying back 20 million shares at an average price of $90.47 per share, spending about $1.809 billion.
Size Context: The new 15 million share target is about 1.2% of the bank's total shares outstanding.

🚀 How the Buyback Works

The bank will buy its own shares on the open market over the next year.

Timeline: Purchases can start April 7, 2026, and the program runs until April 6, 2027.
Where: On the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and other trading platforms.
Price: The bank will pay the current market price when it buys.
Daily Limit: To avoid impacting the market too much, daily purchases are capped at 1,114,002 shares (based on recent trading volume), unless buying a large block.
Automatic Plan: The bank will set up an automatic plan with its broker, Scotia Capital Inc., to handle the purchases smoothly.

📦 Why The Bank Is Doing This

A share buyback has three main purposes:

Manage Capital: It's a way to use excess cash and fine-tune the bank's financial structure.
Offset Dilution: When employees exercise stock options, it creates new shares. Buying back shares helps cancel out this dilution.
Boost Shareholder Value: By reducing the number of shares outstanding, each remaining share represents a slightly larger piece of the bank, which can increase earnings per share and support the stock price.

🔮 What's Next & What This Signals

The program will officially kick off on April 7, 2026. This move signals confidence from the bank's leadership. 👉 Why it matters: Management is telling the market they believe the bank's stock is a good use of capital and is worth investing in. It suggests they see the current share price as attractive and are committed to returning value to shareholders.

⚖️ Big Picture: Strengths & Risks

👍 Strength: Shows strong capital position and financial discipline. Scotiabank has a long history as a stable, major bank.
⚠️ Risk: Share buybacks use cash that could be used for other investments or to buffer against future economic downturns. The benefit also depends on the price the bank pays for its own shares.

🧠 The Analogy

Think of Scotiabank as the owner of a popular pizza restaurant. Instead of selling more slices (issuing new shares), the owner is now using the restaurant's profits to buy back some of the slices already sold. This means the remaining slice-owners each get a slightly bigger share of the restaurant's future profits.

📇 Key Contacts & People

For Investor Inquiries: Investor Relations, [email protected]
For Media Inquiries Only: Lana Gogas, Global Communications, [email protected]

🧩 Final Takeaway

Scotiabank is launching a new $1+ billion share buyback program, showing confidence in its own stock and a plan to efficiently return capital to shareholders over the coming year.

BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA — 6-K Filing