Buyback Scorecard CFOs Share Their Stock Buyback Secrets Best and Worst Programs Industry Comparisons

The table below ranks the 270 companies in the S&P 500 that bought back at least 4 percent of their shares from March 31, 2012, through March 31, 2014. The companies are ranked according to their return on investment from these repurchases. 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 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.

How the S&P 500 Stack Up as Stock Repurchasers 1—50 | 51—100 | 101—150 | 151—200 | 201—250 | 251—270
	Company	Industry	Market Capitalization	$ Total Buyback	$ Total Buyback / Market Cap	Buyback Strategy	Buyback Effectiveness	Buyback ROI
	Average		$46,040	$3,349	8.6%	22.3%	4.3%	27.5%
	Median		$21,057	$1,530	7.2%	22.4%	3.4%	27.4%
1	Keurig Green Mountain	Food, Beverage and Tobacco	17,084	1,146	6.7	32.4	94.3	157.2
2	Gilead Sciences	Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences	108,972	1,679	1.5	81.4	5.0	90.4
3	Southwest Airlines Co.	Transportation	16,574	1,205	7.3	57.4	17.0	84.1
4	Yahoo!	Software and Services	36,237	5,891	16.3	57.7	13.2	78.6
5	Boston Scientific Corp.	Healthcare Equipment and Services	17,893	1,087	6.1	49.2	17.3	74.9
6	Western Digital Corp.	Technology Hardware and Equipment	21,694	1,990	9.2	53.2	13.5	73.9
7	Tyson Foods	Food, Beverage and Tobacco	14,976	1,025	6.8	41.5	22.0	72.6
8	The Dow Chemical Co.	Materials	58,769	1,557	2.6	22.1	37.1	67.4
9	McKesson Corp.	Healthcare Equipment and Services	40,634	1,344	3.3	46.9	13.3	66.4
10	Lincoln National Corp.	Insurance	13,362	942	7.1	47.0	12.9	66.0
11	Lockheed Martin Corp.	Capital Goods	52,117	3,616	6.9	41.1	16.5	64.3
12	Mylan	Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences	18,161	2,000	11.0	46.9	11.3	63.4
13	Northrop Grumman Corp.	Capital Goods	26,741	3,994	14.9	44.9	12.0	62.3
14	Delphi Automotive	Automobiles and Components	20,792	1,013	4.9	49.7	8.1	61.9
15	Ameriprise Financial	Diversified Financials	20,979	3,129	14.9	44.9	11.5	61.5
16	Celgene Corp.	Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences	56,680	6,208	11.0	46.5	9.6	60.7
17	St. Jude Medical	Healthcare Equipment and Services	18,564	2,001	10.8	28.6	24.9	60.6
18	Adobe Systems	Software and Services	32,721	1,625	5.0	41.5	12.8	59.6
19	Seagate Technology	Technology Hardware and Equipment	18,463	4,794	26.0	53.9	2.4	57.6
20	Valero Energy Corp.	Energy	28,287	1,329	4.7	53.6	1.2	55.4
21	Flowserve Corp.	Capital Goods	10,779	1,318	12.2	44.3	6.6	53.9
22	Harris Corp.	Technology Hardware and Equipment	7,813	662	8.5	34.9	13.8	53.5
23	McGraw Hill Financial	Diversified Financials	20,879	1,411	6.8	35.6	12.8	52.9
24	SanDisk Corp.	Technology Hardware and Equipment	18,309	1,873	10.2	23.1	24.1	52.7
25	Gannett Co.	Media	6,280	273	4.4	44.4	5.7	52.6
26	H&R Block	Consumer Services	8,279	346	4.2	39.9	7.8	50.8
27	Hewlett-Packard Co.	Technology Hardware and Equipment	61,326	3,417	5.6	8.5	38.9	50.7
28	LyondellBasell Industries	Materials	48,292	2,169	4.5	50.9	-0.4	50.3
29	Cardinal Health	Healthcare Equipment and Services	23,995	989	4.1	31.9	13.4	49.6
30	Legg Mason	Diversified Financials	5,841	797	13.6	30.1	14.9	49.5
31	Moody's Corp.	Diversified Financials	16,973	1,291	7.6	44.6	3.0	48.9
32	Assurant	Insurance	4,663	728	15.6	28.5	15.6	48.5
33	CBS Corp.	Media	36,674	4,796	13.1	47.1	0.6	48.0
34	Bank of America Corp.	Banks	181,086	4,662	2.6	46.2	0.8	47.3
35	Ingersoll-Rand	Capital Goods	15,915	2,841	17.8	42.8	2.9	47.0
36	MasterCard	Software and Services	88,635	5,612	6.3	42.0	3.5	46.9
37	Express Scripts Holding Co.	Healthcare Equipment and Services	58,233	4,673	8.0	20.1	21.6	46.0
38	TE Connectivity Ltd.	Technology Hardware and Equipment	24,687	1,404	5.7	30.2	12.2	46.0
39	AmerisourceBergen Corp.	Healthcare Equipment and Services	15,033	922	6.1	35.3	7.8	45.9
40	Time Warner Cable	Media	38,061	4,262	11.2	38.6	3.9	44.1
41	Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.	Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences	86,080	2,024	2.4	31.7	9.2	43.9
42	Fidelity National Information Services	Software and Services	15,536	929	6.0	36.1	5.1	43.1
43	L-3 Communications	Capital Goods	10,218	1,478	14.5	32.6	7.5	42.5
44	Visa	Software and Services	136,773	8,357	6.1	42.9	-0.3	42.5
45	The Walt Disney Co.	Media	140,287	8,687	6.2	39.1	2.1	42.0
46	GameStop Corp.	Retailing	4,760	546	11.5	31.5	7.9	41.9
47	Computer Sciences Corp.	Software and Services	8,861	804	9.1	46.0	-3.0	41.6
48	Rockwell Automation	Capital Goods	17,285	834	4.8	24.4	13.7	41.5
49	Agilent Technologies	Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences	18,645	1,144	6.1	17.0	20.9	41.5
50	Aon	Insurance	25,377	2,727	10.7	33.4	6.0	41.4
Source: Fortuna Advisors Analysis using data from the Capital IQ database. Financial Data from March 2012 to March 2014. Includes the 490 members of the current S&P 500 that were public for the full period. Market Capitalization as of: 03/31/2014. Companies Included here if $ Total Buyback / Market Capitalization is greater than 4% or if $ Total Buyback is greater than $1 Billion.