| Buyback Scorecard The Most and Least Effective Stock Buyback Programs Best and Worst Programs Industry Comparisons |
The table below ranks the 268 companies in the S&P 500 that bought back at least 4 percent of their shares from September 30, 2011, through September 30, 2013. 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—263 | ||||||||
| Company | Industry | Market Capitalization | $ Total Buyback | $ Total Buyback / Market Cap | Buyback Strategy | Buyback Effectiveness | Buyback ROI | |
| Average | $41,922 | $3,016 | 8.7% | 23.1% | 4.4% | 28.5% | ||
| Median | $17,310 | $1,400 | 7.8% | 22.0% | 3.5% | 28.4% | ||
| 1 | Constellation Brands | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 10,812 | 609 | 5.6 | 67.2 | 19.7 | 100.1 |
| 2 | GameStop Corp. | Retailing | 5,804 | 660 | 11.4 | 47.5 | 33.7 | 97.1 |
| 3 | Gilead Sciences | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 96,230 | 1,076 | 1.1 | 73.3 | 12.7 | 95.2 |
| 4 | Cigna Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 21,739 | 1,044 | 4.8 | 29.6 | 35.8 | 76.1 |
| 5 | Celgene Corp. | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 63,393 | 4,758 | 7.5 | 53.8 | 13.9 | 75.2 |
| 6 | Western Digital Corp. | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 14,952 | 1,596 | 10.7 | 45.8 | 17.8 | 71.8 |
| 7 | H&R Block | Consumer Services | 7,285 | 346 | 4.8 | 48.7 | 15.4 | 71.6 |
| 8 | Lincoln National Corp. | Insurance | 11,106 | 1,043 | 9.4 | 39.8 | 19.1 | 66.5 |
| 9 | Gannett Co. | Media | 6,139 | 258 | 4.2 | 56.8 | 5.1 | 64.8 |
| 10 | Yahoo! | Software and Services | 33,844 | 5,697 | 16.8 | 43.2 | 14.8 | 64.3 |
| 11 | Boston Scientific Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 15,765 | 1,176 | 7.5 | 28.3 | 28.0 | 64.3 |
| 12 | General Motors Co. | Automobiles and Components | 49,790 | 7,539 | 15.1 | 19.0 | 34.5 | 60.0 |
| 13 | Bank of America Corp. | Diversified Financials | 148,255 | 1,869 | 1.3 | 32.5 | 18.9 | 57.6 |
| 14 | Ameriprise Financial | Diversified Financials | 18,020 | 2,848 | 15.8 | 40.4 | 12.0 | 57.1 |
| 15 | TE Connectivity | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 21,413 | 1,029 | 4.8 | 28.7 | 21.9 | 56.9 |
| 16 | Twenty-First Century Fox | Media | 76,761 | 6,064 | 7.9 | 50.1 | 4.3 | 56.5 |
| 17 | Moody’s Corp. | Diversified Financials | 15,501 | 944 | 6.1 | 43.5 | 8.6 | 55.9 |
| 18 | Tenet Healthcare Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 4,185 | 604 | 14.4 | 41.6 | 9.0 | 54.4 |
| 19 | State Street Corp. | Diversified Financials | 29,323 | 3,413 | 11.6 | 38.4 | 11.5 | 54.2 |
| 20 | Electronic Arts | Software and Services | 7,834 | 631 | 8.1 | 8.8 | 41.3 | 53.7 |
| 21 | KeyCorp. | Banks | 10,389 | 626 | 6.0 | 33.3 | 15.3 | 53.7 |
| 22 | Starbucks Corp. | Consumer Services | 57,835 | 1,137 | 2.0 | 38.5 | 10.6 | 53.1 |
| 23 | Seagate Technology | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 15,625 | 4,134 | 26.5 | 89.1 | -19.1 | 53.0 |
| 24 | CBS Corp. | Media | 33,368 | 2,703 | 8.1 | 47.9 | 3.2 | 52.6 |
| 25 | Pentair. | Capital Goods | 12,933 | 874 | 6.8 | 35.5 | 12.5 | 52.5 |
| 26 | Biogen Idec | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 57,222 | 1,496 | 2.6 | 51.8 | 0.5 | 52.5 |
| 27 | SLM Corp. | Diversified Financials | 10,861 | 929 | 8.6 | 34.7 | 12.2 | 51.2 |
| 28 | Tyson Foods | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 9,961 | 878 | 8.8 | 30.4 | 15.8 | 51.1 |
| 29 | Thermo Fisher Scientific | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 33,222 | 1,590 | 4.8 | 27.8 | 17.6 | 50.3 |
| 30 | The Kroger Co. | Food and Staples Retailing | 20,994 | 1,918 | 9.1 | 30.5 | 14.9 | 49.9 |
| 31 | Viacom | Media | 39,874 | 6,794 | 17.0 | 31.9 | 13.5 | 49.7 |
| 32 | Life Technologies Corp. | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 12,920 | 843 | 6.5 | 32.0 | 13.3 | 49.5 |
| 33 | The Interpublic Group of Cos. | Media | 7,253 | 784 | 10.8 | 34.6 | 10.7 | 48.9 |
| 34 | Mylan | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 15,574 | 1,500 | 10.3 | 30.4 | 13.8 | 48.3 |
| 35 | Ingersoll-Rand | Capital Goods | 18,912 | 2,217 | 11.7 | 33.7 | 10.9 | 48.3 |
| 36 | priceline.com | Retailing | 52,065 | 1,141 | 2.2 | 34.6 | 10.0 | 48.1 |
| 37 | Lowe’s Cos. | Retailing | 50,076 | 7,693 | 15.4 | 51.0 | -2.3 | 47.5 |
| 38 | Principal Financial Group | Insurance | 12,604 | 526 | 4.2 | 32.4 | 11.1 | 47.1 |
| 39 | The Gap | Retailing | 18,831 | 1,984 | 10.5 | 60.7 | -8.5 | 47.1 |
| 40 | Time Warner | Media | 60,546 | 5,988 | 9.9 | 42.8 | 3.0 | 47.0 |
| 41 | Halliburton Co. | Energy | 43,989 | 4,478 | 10.2 | 2.9 | 41.9 | 46.1 |
| 42 | Dover Corp. | Capital Goods | 15,331 | 1,272 | 8.3 | 25.5 | 16.3 | 46.0 |
| 43 | Northrop Grumman Corp. | Capital Goods | 21,926 | 3,674 | 16.8 | 31.8 | 10.4 | 45.5 |
| 44 | Discovery Communications | Media | 29,635 | 2,160 | 7.3 | 43.3 | 1.4 | 45.2 |
| 45 | Lockheed Martin Corp. | Capital Goods | 40,706 | 2,761 | 6.8 | 33.7 | 8.5 | 45.1 |
| 46 | Discover Financial Services | Diversified Financials | 24,451 | 2,496 | 10.2 | 43.4 | 0.9 | 44.7 |
| 47 | Amgen | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 84,319 | 10,737 | 12.7 | 43.9 | 0.3 | 44.3 |
| 48 | American International Group | Insurance | 71,795 | 13,262 | 18.5 | 36.3 | 5.8 | 44.3 |
| 49 | St. Jude Medical | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 15,405 | 1,601 | 10.4 | 10.7 | 28.5 | 42.3 |
| 50 | Honeywell International | Capital Goods | 65,173 | 1,162 | 1.8 | 32.7 | 7.2 | 42.2 |
| Source: Fortuna Advisors Analysis using data from the Capital IQ database. Financial Data from Septmeber 2011 to September 2013. Includes the 489 members of the current S&P 500 that were public for the full period. Market Capitalization as of: 09/30/2013. Companies Included here if $ Total Buyback / Market Capitalization is greater than 4% or if $ Total Buyback is greater than $1 Billion. | ||||||||
