Second-Quarter 2014 Corporate Buyback Scorecard; Best & Worst Companies

September 19, 2014

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 or $1 billion of their shares from June 30, 2012 through June 30, 2014, according to their return on investment.

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 or $1 billion of their shares from June 30, 2012 through June 30, 2014, 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
	Company	Industry	Market Cap ($ Millions)	Total Buyback (S Millions)	$ Total Buyback as % Market Cap	Buyback Strategy	Buyback Effectiveness	Buyback ROI
1	Keurig Green Mountain	Food, Beverage and Tobacco	20,279	1,262	6.2	88.3	15.2	117.0
2	Southwest Airlines Co.	Transportation	18,583	1,220	6.6	73.5	10.5	91.6
3	SanDisk Corp.	Technology Hardware and Equipment	23,623	2,037	8.6	57.8	9.9	73.5
4	Tyson Foods	Food, Beverage and Tobacco	13,185	955	7.2	47.9	11.1	64.4
5	Western Digital Corp.	Technology Hardware and Equipment	21,697	1,658	7.6	59.8	2.5	63.9
6	Hewlett-Packard Co.	Technology Hardware and Equipment	63,027	3,634	5.8	24.0	32.1	63.7
7	LyondellBasell Industries	Materials	51,490	2,169	4.2	62.6	-0.9	61.2
8	Gilead Sciences	Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences	127,323	2,638	2.1	76.7	-9.6	59.7
9	Boston Scientific Corp.	Healthcare Equipment and Services	16,891	975	5.8	48.6	6.5	58.3
10	Delphi Automotive	Automobiles and Components	20,874	1,068	5.1	53.8	1.3	55.7

Worst
	Company	Industry	Market Cap ($ Millions)	Total Buyback (S Millions)	$ Total Buyback as % Market Cap	Buyback Strategy	Buyback Effectiveness	Buyback ROI
1	Whole Foods Market	Food and Staples Retailing	14,199	603	4.2	1.4	-21.7	-20.5
2	Coach	Consumer Durables and Apparel	9,374	925	9.9	-18.7	-1.9	-20.3
3	Teradata Corp.	Software and Services	6,340	806	12.7	-20.7	0.9	-20.1
4	Urban Outfitters	Retailing	4,664	364	7.8	11.9	-23.9	-14.8
5	Intuitive Surgical	Healthcare Equipment and Services	15,815	2,332	14.7	-14.7	4.9	-10.6
6	Navient Corp.	Diversified Financials	7,487	720	9.6	15.9	-21.3	-8.8
7	Ralph Lauren Corp.	Consumer Durables and Apparel	14,208	970	6.8	0.2	-8.2	-8.0
8	PetSmart	Retailing	5,933	829	14.0	3.0	-10.4	-7.8
9	Mattel	Consumer Durables and Apparel	13,221	653	4.9	13.6	-18.7	-7.6
10	Citrix Systems	Software and Services	10,250	2,058	20.1	-12.2	5.5	-7.4
Source: Fortuna Advisors Analysis using data from the Capital IQ database. Financial Data from June 2012 to June 2014. Includes the 490 members of the current S&P 500 that were public for the full period. Market Capitalization as of: 06/01/2014. Companies Included here if $ Total Buyback / Market Capitalization is greater than 4% or if $ Total Buyback is greater than $1 Billion.