The Chikuho Bank, Ltd. (FKSE:8398) announces a share repurchase program. Under the program, the company will repurchase 1,150,000 shares, representing 1.86% of the outstanding shares for ¥300 million. Shares will be repurchased by market purchase from the Fukuoka Stock Exchange. The purpose of the program is to implement a flexible capital policy in response to changes in the business environment and to use these shares as share-based compensation-type stock options for auditing committee members such as directors and directors excluding external directors. The program will run until January 31, 2017. As of November 2, 2016, the company had 61,940,331 shares outstanding and 549,869 shares in treasury.