Shareholders' Equity

12 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

Stockholders' Equity Note [Abstract]

Share Capital

The Company's nominal share capital is CHF 43.3 million, consisting of 173,106,620 issued shares with a par value of CHF 0.25 each, of which 6,209,647 were held in treasury shares as of March 31, 2020.

The Company's has reserved conditional capital of 25,000,000 shares for potential issuance on the exercise of rights granted under the Company's employee equity incentive plans and additional conditional capital for financing purposes, representing the issuance of up to 25,000,000 shares to cover any conversion rights under a future

convertible bond issuance. This conditional capital was created in order to provide financing flexibility for future expansion, investments or acquisitions. During the 2018 Annual General Meeting, the shareholders of the Company authorized the Board of Directors to issue up to an additional 34,621,324 shares of the Company until September 5, 2020.

Dividends

Pursuant to Swiss corporate law, the payment of dividends is limited to certain amounts of unappropriated retained earnings (CHF 1,096.3 million, or $1,134.9 million based on the exchange rate at March 31, 2020) and is subject to shareholder approval.

In May 2020, the Board of Directors recommended that the Company pay cash dividends for fiscal year 2020 of CHF 134.0 million ($138.7 million based on the exchange rate on March 31, 2020). In September 2019, the Company declared and paid cash dividends of CHF 0.73 (USD equivalent of $0.74) per common share, totaling $124.2 million on the Company's outstanding common stock. In September 2018, the Company declared and paid cash dividends of CHF 0.67 (USD equivalent of $0.69) per common share, totaling approximately $114.0 million in U.S. Dollars, on the Company’s outstanding common stock. In September 2017, the Company declared and paid cash dividends of CHF 0.61 (USD equivalent of $0.63) per common share, totaling approximately $104.2 million in U.S. Dollars, on the Company's outstanding common stock.

Any future dividends will be subject to the approval of the Company's shareholders.

Legal Reserves

Under Swiss corporate law, a minimum of 5% of the Company's annual net income must be retained in a legal reserve until this legal reserve equals 20% of the Company's issued and outstanding aggregate par value per share capital. These legal reserves represent an appropriation of retained earnings that are not available for distribution and totaled $9.9 million at March 31, 2020 (based on the exchange rate at March 31, 2020).

Share Repurchases

In March 2017, the Company's Board of Directors approved the 2017 share buyback program, which authorizes the Company to use up to $250.0 million to purchase its own shares. The Company's share buyback program is expected to remain in effect for a period of three years. Shares may be repurchased from time to time on the open market, through block trades or otherwise. Purchases may be started or stopped at any time without prior notice depending on market conditions and other factors. As of March 31, 2020, $137.4 million is still available for repurchase under the 2017 buyback program. This share buyback program expired in April 2020.

A summary of the approved and active share buyback program is shown in the following table (in thousands, excluding transaction costs):



	Approved			Repurchased
Share Buyback Program	Shares⁽¹⁾	Amounts		Shares	Amounts
March 2017	17,311	$	250,000	2,902	$	112,614

(1) The approval of each of the share buyback programs by the Swiss Takeover Board limits the number of shares that the Company may repurchase to no more than 10% of its authorized share capital and voting rights.

Accumulated Other Comprehensive Loss

The components of accumulated other comprehensive loss were as follows (in thousands):



	Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income (Loss)
	Cumulative Translation Adjustment ⁽¹⁾			Defined Benefit Plans⁽¹⁾			Deferred Hedging Gains (Losses)			Total
March 31, 2019	$	(92,148	)	$	(13,932	)	$	382		$	(105,698	)
Other comprehensive income (loss)	(8,270		)	(6,084		)	(608		)	(14,962		)
March 31, 2020	$	(100,418	)	$	(20,016	)	$	(226	)	$	(120,660	)

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(1) Tax effect was not significant as of March 31, 2020 or 2019.

There was a $0.5 million reclassification of currency translation loss included in other income (expense), net for the year ended March 31, 2019 due to the liquidation of one of the Company's subsidiaries.