A year after it was listed on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, LOM (Holdings) Ltd., which owns the Lines Overseas Management investment businesses, has told the exchange it plans to buy back some if its shares.

In a notice to the BSX, LOM said it has set aside $500,000 to buy back the shares at $1.80 or less.

Companies typically buy back shares and cancel them to increase the value of the remaining stock. When LOM was floated, shares were priced at $4 apiece. On Monday, shares were being traded for $1.70. LOM has been hit hard by declining stock markets, and last week announced that net earnings for the first six months of the year were just $216,767.

The company said that overall revenues were 11 percent lower during the first half of this year compared with the same period last year. The company earned less revenue from brokerage fees and interest income, although there was an increase in gains on securities and other revenues and in foreign exchange earnings as clients shied away from the US dollar.

The company managed to cut operating expenses nine percent, partly by letting go of some staff. In July, the company rented out the second floor of the LOM Building on the corner of Reid and Burnaby Streets and let half of its building in the Cayman Islands. The company said those cost savings would be reflected in the next set of results.