Buyback
Scorecard CFOs Share Their Stock Buyback Secrets The S&P 500 as Stock Repurchasers Industry Comparisons
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 March 31, 2012 through March 31, 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 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
Worst
Company Industry Market
Cap ($ Millions)		 Total
Buyback (S Millions)		 $ Total
Buyback as %
Market Cap 		Buyback
Strategy 		Buyback
Effectiveness 		Buyback ROI
1 Teradata Corp. Software and Services 7,848 745 9.5 -13.4 -10.8 -22.8
2 CenturyLink Telecommunication Services 18,980 1,940 10.2 -4.3 -9.6 -13.4
3 Edwards Lifesciences Corp. Healthcare Equipment and Services 7,797 1,050 13.5 -3.1 -10.0 -12.8
4 Citrix Systems Software and Services 10,555 557 5.3 -9.2 -3.7 -12.6
5 Apache Corp. Energy 32,742 1,500 4.6 -9.9 -1.9 -11.6
6 Quest Diagnostics Healthcare Equipment and Services 8,356 1,219 14.6 -2.5 -9.3 -11.6
7 Coach Consumer Durables and Apparel 13,785 1,094 7.9 -15.1 4.7 -11.1
8 Mattel Consumer Durables and Apparel 13,652 555 4.1 16.3 -21.3 -8.5
9 CH Robinson Worldwide Transportation 7,719 1,004 13.0 -7.1 -1.5 -8.5
10 Marathon Oil Corp. Energy 24,573 1,051 4.3 3.8 -11.6 -8.2
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.