2012 Corporate Buyback Scorecard
The table below shows the 10 most and least effective stock buyback programs among the companies in the S&P 500 that bought back at least 4 percent of their shares from June 30, 2010, through June 30, 2012, according to their return on investment. As calculated by Fortuna Advisors, a New York City-based consultancy that compiled the data for Institutional Investor, buyback ROI measures the overall rate of return of these companies’ buybacks, based on the internal rate of return of the cash flows associated with them. Buyback strategy tracks the performance of the underlying stock in terms of annualized total shareholder return. Once Fortuna determines buyback ROI and buyback strategy, buyback effectiveness can then be calculated as simply the difference between the two, determined as compounded return.
The Best and Worst Corporate
Stock Buyback Programs |
| Best |
|
| 1 | Sunoco | Energy | $4,969 | $313 | 6.3% | 34.2% | 60.5% | 115.4% |
| 2 | American International Group | Insurance | $55,466 | $5,070 | 9.1% | 0.0% | 77.0% | 76.9% |
| 3 | Seagate Technology Public Limited Company | Tech Hardware | $10,516 | $3,248 | 30.9% | 28.9% | 34.6% | 73.5% |
| 4 | Ross Stores | Retailing | $14,092 | $898 | 6.4% | 51.9% | 10.8% | 68.3% |
| 5 | O'Reilly Automotive | Retailing | $10,563 | $1,571 | 14.9% | 43.1% | 15.8% | 65.6% |
| 6 | Discover Financial Services | Financials | $17,806 | $899 | 5.0% | 52.3% | 8.0% | 64.6% |
| 7 | Wyndham Worldwide | Consumer Svcs | $7,695 | $1,401 | 18.2% | 44.8% | 12.6% | 63.1% |
| 8 | Biogen Idec | Pharma | $34,588 | $1,876 | 5.4% | 61.4% | 0.9% | 62.8% |
| 9 | Dollar Tree | Retailing | $12,479 | $919 | 7.4% | 58.0% | 2.2% | 61.4% |
| 10 | The TJX Companies | Retailing | $31,809 | $2,537 | 8.0% | 36.9% | 15.1% | 57.6% |
| |
| Worst |
|
| 10 | Best Buy Co. | Retailing | $7,124 | $2,515 | 35.3% | -28.7% | -2.4% | -30.4% |
| 9 | Cablevision Systems | Media | $3,603 | $873 | 24.2% | -14.0% | -21.8% | -32.8% |
| 8 | Cliffs Natural Resources | Materials | $7,023 | $290 | 4.1% | -1.8% | -32.9% | -34.1% |
| 7 | Hospira | Pharma | $5,777 | $300 | 5.2% | -21.2% | -16.6% | -34.3% |
| 6 | Hewlett-Packard Company | Tech Hardware | $39,654 | $15,575 | 39.3% | -31.3% | -5.1% | -34.7% |
| 5 | DeVry | Consumer Svcs | $2,028 | $291 | 14.4% | -29.8% | -7.6% | -35.1% |
| 4 | Juniper Networks | Tech Hardware | $8,637 | $1,010 | 11.7% | -17.7% | -21.7% | -35.6% |
| 3 | R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company | Comm and Prof Svcs | $2,122 | $500 | 23.6% | -19.3% | -23.5% | -38.2% |
| 2 | Electronic Arts | Software and Svcs | $3,926 | $600 | 15.3% | -9.9% | -35.7% | -42.0% |
| 1 | Netflix | Retailing | $3,802 | $257 | 6.8% | -12.2% | -45.2% | -51.9% |
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