SiliconBeat

Sigma Designs wasted no time in buying back most of the 5 million shares its board had authorized for repurchase earlier this year, according to its annual 10-K filing Wednesday. It spent $80.6 million buying 3.8 million shares at an average price of $21 per share.

The board of the Milipitas chip maker initially OK’d repurchasing 2 million shares on Feb. 27 when its shares were trading around $32, down 18 percent from where they had ended 2007. The board upped that amount by 3 million more shares on March 18. Sigma shares were battered March 13 after the company said it earned 80 cents per share in its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter, a penny short of Wall Street expectations. They fell $4.16, or 16 percent, to $21.10 on volume that was five times its average for the year.

The repurchases seem to have helped calm the stock price which closed this week up five percent at $23.58.

In the same filing, the company also reported that it reached a tentative agreement to settle litigation related to historic stock-option grants. The amount the company will pay in the agreement, which contains no admission of fault or wrongdoing, was not spelled out, although the company said it had been “accrued” as of the end of its last fiscal year on Feb. 2, when its balance sheet showed “accrued liabilities” of $5.6 million.