Sandisk Can Now Buy Back $15.5 Billion of Its Own Stock. That's 8.6% of the Company.

Memory shaper Sandisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) reported fiscal fourth-quarter results past Wednesday, and the 4th itself wasn't the biggest quality successful the release. The committee approved an further $14 cardinal stock repurchase program, bringing Sandisk's full remaining buyback authorization to $15.5 billion.

For perspective, the marketplace values the full institution astatine astir $181 cardinal arsenic of this writing. Spent astatine caller prices, $15.5 cardinal would discontinue astir 8.6% of Sandisk's shares.

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Whether the programme delivers that overmuch worth comes down to the currency travel backing it -- currency travel that mostly didn't beryllium a twelvemonth ago.

A abrupt currency instrumentality

Sandisk's fiscal fourth-quarter gross came successful astatine $8.97 billion, up 372% twelvemonth implicit year, portion gross borderline reached 84.6%, up from 26.2% a twelvemonth earlier. Full-year gross roseate 175% to $20.2 cardinal successful fiscal 2026 (ended July 3, 2026), and the institution swung from a $1.6 cardinal nett nonaccomplishment the twelvemonth earlier to $11.4 cardinal of nett income.

Pricing is doing astir of the work. Sandisk said sequential gross maturation successful the 4th came astir one-third from higher volumes and two-thirds from higher pricing.

And datacenter gross roseate 437% twelvemonth implicit twelvemonth successful fiscal 2026 arsenic artificial quality (AI) infrastructure build-outs drove request for the company's NAND flash storage.

Booming prices autumn astir consecutive done to cash. Operating currency travel reached $11.7 cardinal successful fiscal 2026, compared to $84 cardinal the twelvemonth before, and it is inactive accelerating -- the quarterly fig much than doubled from $3.0 cardinal successful fiscal Q3 to $7.1 cardinal successful fiscal Q4.

Meanwhile, superior spending totaled conscionable $177 cardinal for the year. Sandisk besides paid disconnected its semipermanent indebtedness and finished the twelvemonth with astir $4.8 cardinal successful cash. And adjacent the company's much blimpish measurement of currency procreation is enormous: Adjusted escaped currency flow, which excludes astir $2.5 cardinal of lawsuit prepayments and deposits, was $8.7 billion.

Management has already shown its gait

The caller authorization didn't travel retired of nowhere. The committee approved a $6 cardinal repurchase programme connected April 30, and by the clip the fiscal twelvemonth closed connected July 3 (about 2 months later), Sandisk had already spent astir $4.5 cardinal of it.

That gait explains the size of the follow-up. With lone astir $1.5 cardinal near connected the April program, the committee added $14 billion. The institution said it expects repurchases to beryllium funded by operating currency flows.