Artificial Intelligence (AI) service specialist ESTsoft (CEO Jeong Sang-won, 047560) announced on the 7th that it has signed a share buyback trust contract worth 2 billion won for the purpose of stabilizing stock prices and enhancing shareholder value through a board resolution.

The contracting institution is NH Investment & Securities, and the contract period is for a total of six months from September 8th until March 7th, 2022.

Through this, the number of shares worth 2 billion won that the company will acquire is approximately 152,671 shares based on the closing price of the day before (6th), which is about 1.3% of the total number of shares.

Before this contract, ESTsoft, as part of its shareholder return policy, has been buying back its own shares during trading hours every year since CEO Jeong Sang-won took office. The total shares bought from 2016 to now amount to 85 billion won, which is 1,178,544 shares, accounting for 10.4% of the total issued shares.

A company representative said, "This share buyback contract was decided to show shareholders our confidence in the company's growth," and added, "We have entered full-scale growth centered on new businesses based on AI technology that we have been preparing for a long time, as we succeeded in turning to profit in 2020 and also saw a significant increase in sales and operating profit in the first half of this year."

Indeed, ESTsoft's sales revenue in the first half was 43.51 billion won, a growth of about 13% compared to the same period last year, and operating profit was 4.63 billion won, maintaining a performance of more than 10% in operating profit margin.

Meanwhile, last April, ESTsoft introduced its own 'AI Announcer' through the news-specialized broadcast channel YTN and received recognition for its virtual human development technology. In addition, the 'AI/AR (Augmented Reality) based virtual fitting technology for glasses and sunglasses' that is being serviced through its subsidiary DeepEye was selected as a representative AR service by Apple and is the only Korean company to be introduced on the Apple Korea website, focusing on developing technologies and services that can be used in the era of the metaverse.