Leveraged Buyback

Categories: Company Management

See: Leverage. See: Buyback.

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Finance: Why Do Companies Buy Back Their...21 Views

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And finance allah shmoop why do companies buy back their

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own stock Well sometimes wall street simply gets it wrong

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Investors place of value on a company based on whatever

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price its stock is trading at and when investors do

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get it wrong on the low side cos they're usually

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the first to realize the disconnect and they're usually wise

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to proactively take advantage of it in buying back their

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own stock That's the basic quick and dirty But the

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details answer for why companies buy back their own stocks

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a bit more complex companies who have excess cash used

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to just pay a dividend and when they still had

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more cash than they needed for upgrading those smelting plants

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and improving their assembly line efficiency and perfecting the quality

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of their pooper scoopers while they simply up to their

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dividend But then tax laws changed Basically tax rates went

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higher Acme hemorrhoid cream supply company makes a billion dollars

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in operating profit a year and it pays three hundred

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million bucks in taxes to net seven hundred million dollars

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in earnings but then pays three hundred million dollars in

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dividends back to shareholders but then shareholders pay tax on

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that three hundred million well in california for example shareholders

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would pay something like one hundred million dollars in taxes

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on those three hundred million in dividend distributions so the

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company just earned a billion box and four hundred million

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of it went back to the government well eventually companies

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and individuals got sick of such a heavy tax burden

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So instead of paying out taxable dividends companies began using

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that excess cash to buy back their own stock Instead

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buy backs are not taxed so that entire three hundred

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million dollars that might have gone out for dividends had

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the company used it all for buybacks would be some

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thirty percent more efficient Keep in mind that buying back

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stock shrinks the pie of ownership That is if a

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company has two hundred fifty million shares outstanding and earned

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five hundred million bucks in a year each year for

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five years But each year the company bought back ten

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million shares than at the end of those five years

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The company would have just two hundred million shares out

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standing while still earning the same five hundred million bucks

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Initially the company was earning two dollars a share about

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with fewer shares that two dollars per share grew to

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fifty a share So even on flat earnings the company

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was able to grow its earnings per share just by

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buying back its own stock So yeah all of this

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is nice and can work well if the company trades

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at a low price to earnings Multiple low means that

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the company believes it will be around for the next

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fifty years or so It earns a dollar share and

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trades for ten dollars a share and has no debt

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and is growing revenue steadily it in a five six

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seven Eight percent a year and lives in an industry

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which this year for some stupid reason is out of

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favor with young wall street investors So the stock which

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used to trade a twenty five times earnings now trades

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at only ten times and with the company believing it'll

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still grow earning sizably in the future at ten times

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this year's earnings nine times next years and eight times

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the following year's earnings the company looks like a bargain

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if the's low multiples So let's say a company has

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no cash and no debt and will earn a dollars

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Share this year in trades for ten bucks a share

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Well if it took half of its earnings to buy

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back stock and if the stock price stated ten bucks

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and the earning stayed flat at a buck a share

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well they'd have fought back the entire company in twenty

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years In reality with fewer shares and even just flat

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earnings i'ii earnings that aren't growing a company's stock price

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would almost always go up So in a sense this

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is a way for a company to force ah higher

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stock price or force wall street to recognize its value

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So all of this is great In theory the reality

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is that many companies think they're better than they really

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are and spend billions buying back their own stock at

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twenty bucks a share after it fell from eighty on

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ly to see the stock Ten bucks a share two

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years later the wall street pros do nothing all day

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over even figure out the trends that shaped stock prices

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in the future So it's a rare company that can

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see that vision more clearly than the droves of professional

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investors all around him of course there's a second possibility

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Maybe a company just has a sentimental attachment to its 00:03:58.453 --> [endTime] stock and the missing reunited And it feels good

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