Buyback Scorecard
Stock Buyback
ROI Edges into the Black, Barely
Best & Worst Companies
Industry Comparisons
The table below ranks the 305 companies in the S&P 500 that bought back at least 4 percent or more than $1 billion of their shares from June 30, 2014 to June 30, 2016. 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—300 | 301—305 | ||||||||
| Company | Industry | Market Capitalization | $ Total Buyback | $ Total Buyback / Market Cap | Buyback Strategy | Buyback Effectiveness | Buyback ROI | |
| Average | $45,780 | $3,582 | 10.6% | 5.1% | -3.3% | 1.7% | ||
| Median | $20,113 | $1,700 | 7.7% | 5.4% | -2.2% | 1.8% | ||
| 1 | NVIDIA Corp. | Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment | 25,103 | 1,410 | 5.6 | 51.0 | 18.3 | 78.6 |
| 2 | Tyson Foods | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 25,731 | 1,797 | 7.0 | 28.4 | 24.4 | 59.7 |
| 3 | Global Payments | Software and Services | 10,992 | 536 | 4.9 | 46.6 | 1.5 | 48.9 |
| 4 | Fortune Brands Home & Security | Capital Goods | 8,891 | 428 | 4.8 | 20.6 | 19.9 | 44.6 |
| 5 | Sysco Corp. | Food and Staples Retailing | 28,593 | 1,949 | 6.8 | 18.3 | 21.9 | 44.3 |
| 6 | Applied Materials | Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment | 26,107 | 3,046 | 11.7 | 6.1 | 33.6 | 41.8 |
| 7 | Avery Dennison Corp. | Materials | 6,666 | 501 | 7.5 | 25.6 | 10.8 | 39.1 |
| 8 | Martin Marietta Materials | Materials | 12,197 | 710 | 5.8 | 20.7 | 13.5 | 37.0 |
| 9 | Masco Corp. | Capital Goods | 10,295 | 743 | 7.2 | 31.2 | 2.5 | 34.4 |
| 10 | Northrop Grumman Corp. | Capital Goods | 40,111 | 5,231 | 13.0 | 34.5 | -0.2 | 34.2 |
| 11 | Darden Restaurants | Consumer Services | 8,027 | 687 | 8.6 | 25.9 | 5.1 | 32.3 |
| 12 | Nasdaq | Diversified Financials | 10,639 | 507 | 4.8 | 34.4 | -1.7 | 32.1 |
| 13 | Electronic Arts | Software and Services | 22,833 | 1,434 | 6.3 | 47.2 | -11.3 | 30.5 |
| 14 | VeriSign | Software and Services | 9,379 | 1,404 | 15.0 | 31.5 | -0.9 | 30.4 |
| 15 | McDonald’s Corp. | Consumer Services | 105,641 | 15,847 | 15.0 | 15.1 | 12.5 | 29.6 |
| 16 | Whirlpool Corp. | Consumer Durables and Apparel | 12,659 | 600 | 4.7 | 11.9 | 15.0 | 28.7 |
| 17 | Fiserv | Software and Services | 24,174 | 2,518 | 10.4 | 31.8 | -2.8 | 28.1 |
| 18 | Altria Group | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 134,915 | 1,430 | 1.1 | 31.5 | -2.8 | 27.9 |
| 19 | Accenture | Software and Services | 70,528 | 5,076 | 7.2 | 22.9 | 3.8 | 27.6 |
| 20 | UnitedHealth Group | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 134,254 | 4,251 | 3.2 | 32.3 | -3.6 | 27.5 |
| 21 | O’Reilly Automotive | Retailing | 26,149 | 2,560 | 9.8 | 33.9 | -5.5 | 26.6 |
| 22 | Assurant | Insurance | 5,346 | 872 | 16.3 | 14.3 | 9.9 | 25.6 |
| 23 | CR Bard | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 17,242 | 822 | 4.8 | 24.0 | 1.0 | 25.2 |
| 24 | Dollar General Corp. | Retailing | 26,675 | 1,754 | 6.6 | 23.8 | 0.5 | 24.3 |
| 25 | The Home Depot | Retailing | 158,847 | 12,941 | 8.1 | 32.2 | -6.0 | 24.2 |
| 26 | Raytheon Co. | Capital Goods | 40,374 | 1,849 | 4.6 | 18.7 | 4.4 | 24.0 |
| 27 | Henry Schein | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 14,509 | 605 | 4.2 | 21.6 | 2.0 | 24.0 |
| 28 | Lockheed Martin Corp. | Capital Goods | 75,555 | 4,743 | 6.3 | 24.1 | -0.3 | 23.8 |
| 29 | Waste Management | Commercial and Professional Services | 29,441 | 1,700 | 5.8 | 21.5 | 1.6 | 23.5 |
| 30 | Adobe Systems | Software and Services | 47,731 | 1,250 | 2.6 | 22.0 | 0.4 | 22.5 |
| 31 | Dr Pepper Snapple Group | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 17,955 | 968 | 5.4 | 31.0 | -7.9 | 20.7 |
| 32 | Thermo Fisher Scientific | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 58,145 | 1,500 | 2.6 | 12.5 | 7.0 | 20.4 |
| 33 | KLA-Tencor Corp. | Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment | 11,406 | 785 | 6.9 | 19.6 | 0.5 | 20.2 |
| 34 | Republic Services | Commercial and Professional Services | 17,646 | 745 | 4.2 | 19.6 | 0.5 | 20.2 |
| 35 | PerkinElmer | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 5,715 | 255 | 4.5 | 8.9 | 10.0 | 19.8 |
| 36 | Stanley Black & Decker | Capital Goods | 16,696 | 1,013 | 6.1 | 16.7 | 2.5 | 19.7 |
| 37 | Honeywell International | Capital Goods | 88,649 | 3,890 | 4.4 | 13.2 | 5.7 | 19.6 |
| 38 | Church & Dwight Co. | Household and Personal Products | 13,204 | 607 | 4.6 | 20.4 | -0.7 | 19.6 |
| 39 | L-3 Communications Holdings | Capital Goods | 11,288 | 1,015 | 9.0 | 8.7 | 10.0 | 19.5 |
| 40 | Nielsen Holdings | Media | 18,751 | 1,389 | 7.4 | 8.9 | 9.3 | 19.1 |
| 41 | Citrix Systems | Software and Services | 12,422 | 924 | 7.4 | 17.0 | 1.5 | 18.8 |
| 42 | Lowe’s Cos. | Retailing | 70,153 | 8,233 | 11.7 | 30.9 | -9.4 | 18.6 |
| 43 | Leggett & Platt | Consumer Durables and Apparel | 6,865 | 366 | 5.3 | 25.3 | -5.6 | 18.3 |
| 44 | General Mills | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 42,393 | 1,769 | 4.2 | 12.7 | 4.7 | 18.0 |
| 45 | Ross Stores | Retailing | 22,648 | 1,434 | 6.3 | 28.4 | -8.2 | 18.0 |
| 46 | Visa | Software and Services | 176,889 | 9,334 | 5.3 | 23.3 | -4.3 | 18.0 |
| 47 | Tractor Supply Co. | Retailing | 12,166 | 559 | 4.6 | 20.2 | -2.1 | 17.7 |
| 48 | Marsh & McLennan Cos. | Insurance | 35,684 | 2,356 | 6.6 | 16.2 | 0.9 | 17.3 |
| 49 | S&P Global | Diversified Financials | 28,381 | 1,347 | 4.7 | 17.2 | 0.0 | 17.2 |
| 50 | Kimberly-Clark Corp. | Household and Personal Products | 49,510 | 2,176 | 4.4 | 14.4 | 2.4 | 17.2 |
Source: Fortuna Advisors Analysis using data from the Capital IQ database. Financial Data from June 2014 to June 2016. Includes the 487 members of the current S&P 500 that were public for the full period. Market Capitalization as of: 6/30/2016. Companies included here if $ Total Buyback / Market Capitalization is greater than 4% or if $ Total Buyback is greater than $1 billion. | ||||||||
