The past month has been quite kind to the AMP Ltd (ASX: AMP) share price. AMP shares closed at $1.19 each on Wednesday, up a healthy 1.71%. That's a pleasing 21.4% higher than the 98 cents price tag the company was commanding a month ago. It's also a whopping increase of more than 38% from the 52-week low of 86 cents a share that AMP recorded back in early March.
It appears a major factor in these gains is the multiple agreements AMP has negotiated over the past month or two that will see the company's Collimate Capital business broken up and sold.
Late last month, AMP announced that DigitalBridge Investment will buy Collimate Capital's international infrastructure equity business for up to a total of $699 million. Before that, AMP also announced that Collimate's domestic infrastructure equity and real estate businesses will be bought by Deus Property Group (ASX: DXS) for a potential $1 billion.
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AMP share price rises amid rumours of buybacks and dividends
AMP has promised to return much of the capital from these sales directly to shareholders. As my Fool colleague Brendan covered earlier this week, this could see the company undertake an on-market share buyback, and perhaps a capital return, potentially in the form of a special dividend. AMP hasn't paid out a dividend since 2019. This could be why we have seen an uptick in the AMP share price of late.
But AMP certainly has a long way to go if shareholders want to see the one-time financial services giant return to its former glory. Five years ago, AMP was a $5 share. And we won't spend too long on the company's 2007 days when it was commanding a share price over $10. Not to mention the early 2000s, which saw AMP shares close to $15.
At the current AMP share price, this ASX 200 share has a market capitalisation of $3.87 billion.
