Datum to Buy Shares of Outstanding Stock

Datum Inc., an Anaheim-based maker of precision frequency and timing instruments, said its board of directors has authorized the company to purchase up to 150,000 shares of its outstanding common stock at management’s discretion.

“We are approaching price levels at which the board believes the purchase of outstanding shares constitutes an attractive use of available capital resources,” said Louis B. Horwitz, president of Datum. The company expects to make occasional purchases of its common stock either on the open market or in block or negotiated transactions, he said.

The move essentially renews an authorization to buy shares that the board granted a year ago, according to Benjamin F. Tarver, Datum’s vice president of finance. In September, 1985, the board authorized the purchase of up to 300,000 shares. But the company had purchased only 150,000 of Datum’s 2.85 million shares of common stock outstanding when the authorization expired June 30, Tarver said. The board’s latest authorization expires June 30, 1987.

The price of Datum’s common stock closed Wednesday at $5.375 per share, unchanged from the previous day’s trading.