The media latched on to this quote with both hands, apparently not taking the time to read what Warren Buffett actually wrote in his annual letter.
“The math isn’t complicated: When the share count goes down, your interest in our many businesses goes up. Every small bit helps if repurchases are made at value-accretive prices.
“Just as surely, when a company overpays for repurchases, the continuing shareholders lose. At such times, gains flow only to the selling shareholders and to the friendly, but expensive, investment banker who recommended the foolish purchases.
“Gains from value-accretive repurchases, it should be emphasized, benefit all owners—in every respect.”
Mr. Buffett is correct that if repurchases are done at a “value-accretive” price, they can benefit all shareholders by increasing the size of their ownership in the company. Unlike the mainstream narrative, this is NOT a “return of capital to shareholders,” but just the opposite of a shareholder dilution.
A Basic Example
I have discussed the problems with stock buybacks previously. But let’s start with a simple example of what happens with stock buybacks.- Company A earns $1/share, with 10/shares outstanding.
- Earnings Per Share (EPS) = $0.10/share.
- Company A uses all of its cash to buy back 5 shares.
- Next year, Company A earns $0.20/share ($1/5 shares).
- Stock price rises because EPS jumped by 100%.
- However, since the company used all of its cash to buy back the shares, it had nothing left to grow its business.
- The following year Company A still earns $1/share, and EPS remains at $0.20/share.
- Stock price falls because of 0% growth over the year.
As shown in the chart below, the share count of public corporations has dropped sharply over the last decade as companies rush to shore up bottom-line earnings to beat Wall Street estimates against a backdrop of a slowly growing economy and sales.
(The chart below shows the differential added per share via stock backs. It also shows the cumulative growth in EPS and Revenue/Share since 2011). You will notice that while operating earnings per share have surged, actual sales remains very weak.
Mostly Not Value-Accretive
“Over the past five years, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices, big U.S. companies have spent $3.9 trillion repurchasing their own stock.Jason is correct. Notably, the media overlooked another aspect of Buffett’s comment on share buybacks in their rush to support them. While Mr. Buffett was speaking about his repurchases of Berkshire Hathaway stock, he also noted that many managers do not report earnings properly.
“Finally, an important warning: Even the operating earnings figure we favor can easily be manipulated by managers who wish to do so. Such tampering is often considered sophisticated by CEOs, directors and their advisors.
“The tricks are well-known: A difficult quarter can be made easier by releasing reserves set aside for a rainy day or recognizing revenues before sales are made, while a good quarter is often the time to hide a big ‘restructuring charge’ that would otherwise stand out like a sore thumb.
Unsurprisingly, 93 percent of those surveyed pointed to “influence on stock price”and “outside pressure” as the reason for manipulating earnings figures.
However, the question is whether these buybacks were value-accretive to shareholders.
The Real Benefiters
Share buybacks only return money to those individuals who sell their stock. This is an open market transaction, so if Apple (AAPL) buys back some of its outstanding stock, the only people who receive any capital are those who sold their shares.So, who are the ones mostly selling their shares?
It’s the insiders, of course,as changes in wage structures since the turn of the century became heavily dependent on stock-based compensation. Insiders often sell shares “given” to them as part of their overall compensation structure to convert them into actual wealth. As the Financial Times previously penned:
“Corporate executives give several reasons for stock buybacks but none of them has close to the explanatory power of this simple truth: Stock-based instruments make up the majority of their pay and in the short-term buybacks drive up stock prices.”
Stock Buybacks Do Help Keep The Market Afloat
As John Authers pointed out: “For much of the last decade, companies buying their own shares have accounted for all net purchases. The total amount of stock bought back by companies since the 2008 crisis even exceeds the Federal Reserve’s spending on buying bonds over the same period as part of quantitative easing. Both pushed up asset prices.”In other words, between the Federal Reserve injecting massive liquidity into the financial markets and corporations buying back their shares, there have been no other real buyers in the market.
“U.S. stocks have received support from a key source during 2023’s shaky market environment: companies repurchasing their own shares.
While Mr. Buffett is correct that share buybacks benefit shareholders at value-accretive prices, that has not been the case for most corporate actions.
Instead, money that could have been spent for future growth was wasted by only benefiting senior executives who were paid based on fallacious earnings-per-share.
While Mr. Buffett supports the practice of share buybacks, there is a significant difference between what he is doing for Berkshire’s stakeholders and what is happening in the rest of the market.
Of course, that is probably why the SEC had banned stock buybacks until 1990, as they were a form of stock market manipulation.