The Finance Ministry of Korea amended the stock exchange law for the listed firms to be able to repurchase the firm``s own shares from April 1994 as a means to fend off hostile M \& A which will be possible from the first of January 1997. In this paper the Korean stock market reponse to share repurchase announcements is explored and information is provided on the determinants of the market response in Korea. In particular, the relation between the announcement effect associated with timing and the level of information contained in the earnings is emphasized.