Report
What to make of the share buybacks in the United States?
US companies are engaging in massive share buybacks, which is not the case in other countries. These share buybacks turn corporate profits into higher share prices by reducing the number of listed shares. Share buybacks reached a considerable level in 2018 due to the tax reform (reduction in tax on corporate earnings, incentives to repatriate earnings held abroad). What to make of this practice of massive share buybacks in the United States? It is certainly negative: It amounts to an anti-redistributive policy: the skewing of income distribution to the detriment of wage earners in the United States gives US companies the means to finance share buybacks; the resulting rise in share prices benefits shareholding Americans, who are the highest-income Americans; The listed equity market is supposed to be a market in which companies finance themselves. This is not the case at all in the United States, where, on the contrary, the listed equity market absorbs corporate funds.
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Natixis
Based across the world’s leading financial centers, Natixis CIB Research offers an integrated view of the markets. The team provides support to inform Natixis clients’ investment and hedging decisions across all asset classes.
Patrick Artus
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