No, I was not surprised. I was hoping they hadn't increased it quite that much, but then again with the share price where it is, anytime the shares are used it obviously takes more shares to equate to any certain $ value.
With the price of oil down, and the economy being such as it is in general I figured there would be some points where some shares would get used to maintain that "debt free" status.
I know that KAA's preference has always been to preserve shares for use in acquisitions and making such deals. But I'm not surprised, nor alarmed, since it still appears the share usage comes sporatically.
Some are still stating that Hemi has used shares steadily over time even though we have specific PRs stating otherwise (that shares were used during certain time periods for certain reasons... but we also have had long stretches with almost no share usage).
I'm also not concerned that Hemi's O/S would reach their A/S anytime in the near future. I won't go so far as to say it could never happen, but I don't think it's likely to occur unless something happens in the energy market that extends the current price levels beyond 2009. Hemi has many options for funding if they need to use them, including surrendering that "debt free" status for readily available financing if it comes to that. They might not get a premium price for their non-core lease holdings in other states like New Mexico or North Dakota, but they could still get a tidy sum without doing much, if any, harm to their potential for being bought out at some point.
Considering what carrying a debt load does to the deal when a company like Hemi is being acquired by some other company, I'd say that Hemi maintaining that debt-free status is worth doing even if it takes the use of some shares to do so for now.
Frankly, I think it's really remarkable that they've gone from mid-2005 until now and only used 87+ million shares. For as much as some call Hemi a "typical pinky", I don't think that is typical at all.