Many companies spend as much or more on stock buybacks on the open market.
In each of these companies the buybacks played a much bigger role than dividend yield.
This, it expects, will help increase flexibility with regard to preserving capital for future share buybacks.
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BlackRock(BLK) expects that extra 6% cash to be utilized for buybacks and raising dividends.
That means cash-rich Apple is, paradoxically, borrowing money to finance dividends and buybacks for its shareholders.
But companies are notoriously bad at evaluating their stock price, and tend to badly mistime buybacks.
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Inflation has also prompted a massive amount of borrowing for corporate takeovers and stock buybacks.
That changed as company boards began to retain cash for reinvestment and share buybacks.
Following the announcement, banks including Bank of America announced share buybacks and dividend payouts.
The company instead plans to borrow cash to help pay for buybacks, avoiding the tax hit.
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Understand that buybacks and dividends are really the same thing, differing only in their tax treatment.
That makes share buybacks and purchases of other seemingly undervalued firms look like good deals.
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On average, the money spent on buybacks was 50% higher than the amount spent on dividends.
Bachman also believes management will spend on growth-potential acquisitions and share buybacks by next year.
Instead, CommonWealth should sell assets and use the proceeds to shrink its share count through buybacks.
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Still, it can be argued that buybacks did not help bank stocks much in 2011.
Bloomberg reported that Microsoft was planning a debt offering to fund additional dividends and stock buybacks.
However, so far this month the amount and number of announced buybacks has been slowing.
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The company has been returning value to shareholders, says Hunt, through dividend increases and stock buybacks.
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Share buybacks were pioneered by Henry Singleton, the long-time head of Teledyne, a conglomerate.
Singapore Telecom plans share buybacks too, the reason why Ang has a buy on it.
All bull markets end when new share sales from companies and insiders swamp corporate buybacks.
Many companies announce buybacks in an attempt to gain investor support but never follow through.
Buybacks are a corporate hot item, with share repurchases at their highest levels since 2007.
In practice, however, there are many situations where buybacks get the job done better.
Buybacks, by contrast, impose no such pressures, while still indicating that bosses consider the shares undervalued.
Others have fought back with management share buybacks and counter-suits against their critics.
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Morgan, calculates that, counting both dividends and buybacks, the total pay-out ratio has been quite steady.
How can this impact capital spending, dividend payout ratios, financial engineering deals and share buybacks?
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The number of options granted in the previous year is not correlated with share buybacks.
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