Royal Bank Of Canada To Repurchase Up To 12M Of Its Common Shares

Royal Bank of Canada ("RY" on TSX and NYSE)today announced that the Toronto Stock Exchange has approved its normalcourse issuer bid to purchase, for cancellation, up to 12 million of itscommon shares. The shares that may be repurchased represent approximately 0.8 per cent ofthe bank's outstanding common shares. As of October 20, 2014 there were1,442,217,272 common shares of the bank outstanding. Purchases under the normal course issuer bid may commence on November 1,2014 and continue until October 31, 2015, when the bid expires. Purchasesmay be made through the Toronto Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchangeand other designated exchanges and published markets in both Canada and theU.S. The price paid for any repurchased shares will be the prevailing marketprice at the time of acquisition. The amount of purchases on any given day will not exceed 455,905 commonshares, which is 25 per cent of the average daily trading volume on theToronto Stock Exchange for the six months ending September 30, 2014. Theaverage daily trading volume of the bank's shares on the Toronto StockExchange for that six-month period, calculated in accordance with the rulesof the Toronto Stock Exchange for the purposes of the bid, was 1,823,620shares. The purchase of common shares under the normal course issuer bid will enablethe bank to balance the imperatives of maintaining strong capital ratioswith the ongoing need to generate shareholder value. The bank's previous normal course issuer bid commenced on November 1, 2013and will expire on October 31, 2014. Over the term of the previous bid, thebank purchased approximately 1.5 million of its common shares forcancellation at an average price of $72.63 per share.