(Bloomberg) -- Mitsubishi Corp. shares surged to a record on Wednesday after Japan’s largest trading firm announced a share buyback that one analyst called a “monster” deal, as well as better-than-expected quarterly results.

The stock soared as much as 11% on heavy volume. The company plans to repurchase up to 10% of its shares for ¥500 billion ($3.4 billion), and net income for the October-December period nearly tripled from a year earlier, the company said on Tuesday. Separately, Mitsubishi also said it’s agreed with the Japanese telecom firm KDDI Corp. to take the convenience store chain Lawson Inc. private. KDDI shares dropped after the announcement. 

The jump in Mitsubishi shares is good news for investors including Warren Buffett, who has taken big stakes in the company and the four other largest Japanese trading firms. It’s another sign of companies taking steps to increase shareholder value in line with the push for better corporate governance by the Tokyo Stock Exchange.  

“We think that market participants were not expecting” the share repurchase to be so big, Jefferies analyst Thanh Ha Pham wrote in a note, calling it a “monster buyback.” Mitsubishi still has ¥500 billion left that could be used for investments and stock buybacks, he said.

Mitsubishi’s move to take Lawson private with KDDI reflects their goal to accelerate efforts to digitize the retailer’s business. Mitsubishi will reduce its 50.1% stake in Lawson to 50%, becoming an equal owner and partner. KDDI, which owns about 2.1% in Lawson, will launch a tender offer to increase its stake in the convenience store chain to 50%. 

Mitsubishi’s “attempts to find ways to grow its assets, in this case through an unexpected move, hoping to utilize KDDI’s ‘digital know-how,’ will likely be taken well,” wrote CLSA analyst Edward Bourlet in a note. The trading company’s shares have climbed 82% in the past year, outperforming the broader Topix index. Buffett ramped up stakes in Japanese trading firms including Mitsubishi last April.

KDDI shares declined as much as 3.2%, as some analysts see problems with the deal’s valuation. The share price of Lawson has doubled over the past year, boosting its price-to-earnings ratio to about 23. 

--With assistance from Eddy Duan.

(Updates with KDDI shares in last paragraph.)

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