SanDisk Announces $15.5B Buyback Plan, Aims for Record High

SNDK disclosed that its board approved an additional $14 billion share repurchase authorization on August 5, bringing total remaining buyback capacity to $15.5 billion . At recent prices that would retire roughly 8.6% of shares outstanding, an unusually large single authorization relative to market capitalization.

The capacity is funded by an extraordinary swing in cash generation. SanDisk generated $11.7 billion of operating cash flow in fiscal 2026, against $84 million the year before, as the NAND pricing cycle turned. Full-year revenue rose 175% to $20.2 billion and the company moved from a $1.6 billion net loss to $11.4 billion of net income. Repurchases are to be funded from operating cash flow rather than debt, which limits balance-sheet risk if pricing reverses.

The shares have retreated meaningfully from their June high despite the buyback, after fiscal first-quarter guidance came in below expectations [doc6, doc7]. That gap is the investment debate in one line: memory earnings this cyclical are worth a low multiple precisely because the market assumes they cannot persist, and a buyback executed at the top of a pricing cycle destroys value as reliably as one at the bottom creates it. Watch contract NAND pricing and the pace at which the authorization is actually spent, since an authorization is permission, not a commitment.

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