dcm holdings cos shares rose sharply friday morning after the japanese homecenter operator announced a share buyback and a dividend increase the shares were recently 10 higher at 1178 yen after rising as much as 11 earlier dcm said thursday after the market closed that it would buy back up to 55 of its outstanding shares by the end of march 2023 in a bid to improve shareholder returns the company could spend up to 800 billion yen 554 million for the repurchase program it said dcm also boosted its fiscalyear dividend forecast to y4000 a share from its previous view of y3400 the company said demand for gardening products continued to increase and sales of leisure and car products had been strong although higher costs of raw materials weighed on profits for its first half ended aug 31 its firsthalf net profit fell 10 from a year earlier to y1212 billion on revenue of y23883 billion dcm kept its fiscalyear earnings guidance it continued to expect revenue to rise 11 to y49510 billion and net profit to increase 10 to y1900 billion the topix subindex for retailers was recently 09 lower while the nikkei stock average was down 17