Canadian Tire to Purchase 2.9 Million Company Shares

Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited today announced that it intends to purchase as many as 2.9 million outstanding shares of the company next week.
The company says that this is a normal course issuer bid and that, from February 19, 2003 to February 18, 2004, it will purchase through the facilities of the Toronto Stock Exchange certain of its outstanding Class A Non-Voting Shares.
As at February 13, 2003 there were 76,551,992 Class A Non-Voting Shares issued and outstanding. The number of Class A Non-Voting Shares which may be purchased during the period of the bid will not exceed 2,900,000 Class A Non-Voting Shares, which is approximately 4.1% of 71,000,000 shares, the approximate public float of Class A Non-Voting Shares issued and outstanding on February 13, 2003.
The number of Class A Non-Voting Shares purchased during 2002 pursuant to a normal course issuer bid was 310,504. The average price at which such purchases were made was $27.26 per Class A Non-Voting Share (including commissions).
Also during 2002, the trustees of an employee profit sharing plan of Canadian Tire purchased 258,059 Class A Non-Voting Shares. The average price at which such purchases were made was $31.47 per Class A Non-Voting Share (including commissions).
Canadian Tire has a policy of offsetting the dilutive effects of the issuance of Class A Non-Voting Shares by purchasing a number of Class A Non- Voting Shares which in the long term will result in the repurchase by Canadian Tire of a number of shares approximately equal to the number of shares issued from time to time pursuant to employee profit sharing, stock option and share purchase arrangements and the Dividend Reinvestment Plan.
Canadian Tire’s normal course issuer bid is subject to regulatory approval.