(Yicai Global) Sept. 10 -- China Online Education Group, the country's first online tutoring firm to go public overseas, said it plans to repurchase as much as USD2 million of its own shares. The announcement came after its shares slid and ahead of the firm's imminent second-quarter earnings report.

China Online Education's stock price [NYSE:COE] slid 10.3 percent in New York yesterday to USD5.07, a bit more than a quarter of its initial public offering price of USD19 in June 2016.

The Beijing-based firm, which runs the 51Talk English education platform, plans to buy back its Class A ordinary shares in the form of American depository shares on the open market, through privately negotiated deals, or via block trade between Oct. 1 and March 31 next year, it said in a statement yesterday. The firm will use its cash balance to fund the program.

Since listing, China Online Education has continued to make losses. Still, its net loss narrowed by more than a half to CNY59.5 million (USD8.4 million) in the first quarter from a year earlier, while revenue jumped 23 percent to CNY323 million (USD45.4 million). The firm will publish its second-quarter earnings before the US stock market opens tomorrow.

Editor: Emmi Laine