Day Runner Shares the Wealth

IRVINE — In the midst of a stock repurchase program that has boosted its stock price nearly $10 a share, Day Runner Inc. rewarded its 15 top officers and directors Wednesday by buying some of their shares for more than $11.5 million.

The Irvine maker of daily planners and organizers said it used a portion of available cash to repurchase 347,794 shares at the stock’s closing price Wednesday. The stock ended the day at $33.25 a share, up 75 cents on the Nasdaq market.

Executives were limited to selling less than 10% of their holdings and are prohibited from selling any more stock for 60 days.

The transaction, which was completed after the market closed, also increases the stake of other stockholders by retiring 5.9% of the shares outstanding, said Judy Tucker, vice president of corporate development.

It was designed mainly as a reward to longtime officers and directors who were instrumental in helping the company grow, Tucker said. “Almost half these shares are stock held before the company went public in 1992.”

The company’s single largest investor, Jill Tate Higgins, who owned 17.3% of the company, sold 101,174 shares for nearly $3.4 million. Day Runner’s chairman, Mark A. Vidovich, sold 70,000 shares for $2.3 million.

The transaction also boosted the company’s efforts to buy back its stock on the open market. Day Runner started the public repurchase program Feb. 26 when the shares were trading at $23.38.

The idea was to improve the stock price of the cash-rich, debt-free company, and it worked. While spending $13.5 million to buy back 513,100 shares, the stock price climbed steadily from that day to hit a high of $36 last week.

The company plans to continue buying stock on the open market. Directors on Thursday authorized the repurchase of 100,000 additional shares. By the end of the program, Tucker said, Day Runner will have retired 700,000 shares of stock bought publicly--or more than 1 million, including Thursday’s transaction.