Ripple CEO confirms share buyback of 2019’s Series C shares at a $15B value

• Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse shared via Twitter that the company is buying back its Dec. 2019 Series C shares for $15 billion.
• He reiterated that 2021 was the company’s best year thus far and it has plans to step on the gas in 2022.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced via Twitter that the cross-border payments company has decided to buy back its Series C shares valued at $15 billion. The shares were sold to investors in Dec. 2019 as part of the company’s fundraising efforts. 

Share buybacks are usually conducted to boost a company’s stock value or to improve its financial statements. They may also be directed to employee compensation, held for a later secondary offering, or retired. 

In an additional thread of tweets, Garlinghouse praises the company for its resilience and achievements in the last year, especially in light of the lawsuit with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He calls 2021 Ripple’s “best year on record,” saying its $1 billion financial position “is the strongest we’ve ever been.”

Ripple prolific 2021

2021 brought great progress for Ripple despite “a slow-moving judicial process,” as Garlinghouse calls it. For instance, the company partnered with Bhutan, the only carbon negative economy in the world, to pilot its central bank digital currency (CBDC) – the digital Ngultrum. And as part of its environmental-social-governance (ESG) undertaking, the fintech firm entered a strategic partnership with Nelnet Renewable Energy. The two made a joint investment of $44 million towards a Clean Energy Fund – specifically solar projects in the US.

Also in the year, Ripple announced plans to launch a liquidity hub to enable financial companies to offer crypto services to their customers. This project is currently in the preview stage, with a launch expected this year. 

Ripple’s technology enables banks and other financial service firms to conduct cross-border payments services faster and at a lower cost. It also boasts of a product that helps in the issuance of CBDCs. The company undertook many other projects that year, further cementing its attribute as the “Banker’s Coin.”

2022 – “slow down” is not in our vocabulary – Garlinghouse

More recently, the payments service provider brought NFT capabilities to the XRP Ledger through a testnet. According to the executive, the company currently has a volume run rate exceeding $10 billion.

As for the SEC lawsuit, Garlinghouse believes its end is due in 2022, saying,

We’re seeing good questions asked by the judge. And I think the judge realizes this is not just about Ripple, this will have broader implications.

He also mentioned that the company is looking at a possible initial public offering (IPO) after the case is settled. More projects on NFTs, CBDCs, interoperability bridges, and sidechains will soon see the light this year, Garlinghouse notes, adding “2022 – “slow down” is not in our vocabulary.”

XRP at reporting time was trading at $0.63, up 5.0 percent in the past day.