| Buyback Scorecard A Tale of Two Stock Buybacks Best and Worst Programs Industry Comparisons |
The table below ranks the 269 companies in the S&P 500 that bought back at least 4 percent of their shares from December 31, 2011, through December 31, 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—269 | ||||||||
| Company | Industry | Market Capitalization | $ Total Buyback | $ Total Buyback / Market Cap | Buyback Strategy | Buyback Effectiveness | Buyback ROI | |
| Average | $45,904 | $3,097 | 8.1% | 26.7% | 2.3% | 29.5% | ||
| Median | $19,140 | $1,452 | 7.0% | 25.6% | 1.3% | 29.3% | ||
| 1 | The Boeing Co. | Capital Goods | 102,566 | 1,801 | 1.8 | 42.4 | 51.3 | 115.6 |
| 2 | Gilead Sciences | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 115,155 | 1,249 | 1.1 | 86.8 | 6.1 | 98.2 |
| 3 | Yahoo! | Software and Services | 41,024 | 5,512 | 13.4 | 51.3 | 29.8 | 96.5 |
| 4 | GameStop Corp. | Retailing | 5,705 | 614 | 10.8 | 50.5 | 26.0 | 89.5 |
| 5 | Celgene Corp. | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 69,627 | 4,808 | 6.9 | 56.8 | 15.1 | 80.4 |
| 6 | Boston Scientific Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 16,049 | 1,100 | 6.9 | 46.3 | 17.4 | 71.7 |
| 7 | Western Digital Corp. | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 19,845 | 1,746 | 8.8 | 63.8 | 4.1 | 70.5 |
| 8 | Lincoln National Corp. | Insurance | 13,542 | 942 | 7.0 | 62.3 | 4.4 | 69.5 |
| 9 | Southwest Airlines Co. | Transportation | 13,126 | 940 | 7.2 | 45.7 | 14.4 | 66.7 |
| 10 | Ameriprise Financial | Diversified Financials | 22,382 | 2,964 | 13.2 | 55.5 | 6.7 | 66.0 |
| 11 | priceline.com | Retailing | 59,780 | 1,141 | 1.9 | 50.9 | 7.1 | 61.5 |
| 12 | Northrop Grumman Corp. | Capital Goods | 25,442 | 3,687 | 14.5 | 42.7 | 12.5 | 60.5 |
| 13 | Seagate Technology Public Co. | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 18,316 | 5,591 | 30.5 | 87.6 | -15.0 | 59.4 |
| 14 | Biogen Idec | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 66,039 | 1,385 | 2.1 | 54.0 | 2.1 | 57.2 |
| 15 | Johnson Controls | Automobiles and Components | 34,738 | 1,651 | 4.8 | 26.5 | 24.0 | 56.8 |
| 16 | McGraw Hill Financial | Diversified Financials | 21,177 | 1,247 | 5.9 | 35.1 | 15.8 | 56.4 |
| 17 | Gannett Co. | Media | 6,741 | 271 | 4.0 | 59.0 | -1.7 | 56.4 |
| 18 | Moody’s Corp. | Diversified Financials | 16,879 | 1,090 | 6.5 | 50.5 | 3.9 | 56.3 |
| 19 | Mylan | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 16,616 | 2,000 | 12.0 | 47.2 | 6.0 | 55.9 |
| 20 | H&R Block | Consumer Services | 7,958 | 346 | 4.4 | 42.9 | 8.5 | 55.0 |
| 21 | Flowserve Corp. | Capital Goods | 10,994 | 1,230 | 11.2 | 50.9 | 2.0 | 53.9 |
| 22 | MasterCard | Software and Services | 100,255 | 4,191 | 4.2 | 44.9 | 5.5 | 52.8 |
| 23 | Thermo Fisher Scientific | Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Life Sciences | 40,238 | 1,240 | 3.1 | 44.5 | 5.6 | 52.7 |
| 24 | Starbucks Corp. | Consumer Services | 59,075 | 1,160 | 2.0 | 38.2 | 10.4 | 52.6 |
| 25 | Twenty-First Century Fox | Media | 79,796 | 5,681 | 7.1 | 51.3 | 0.7 | 52.4 |
| 26 | Biogen Idec | Capital Goods | 47,349 | 2,752 | 5.8 | 39.3 | 9.3 | 52.2 |
| 27 | CBS Corp. | Media | 38,245 | .,024 | 7.9 | 56.0 | -2.5 | 52.1 |
| 28 | Pentair | Capital Goods | 15,482 | 1,050 | 6.8 | 39.6 | 8.6 | 51.6 |
| 29 | Halliburton Co. | Energy | 43,047 | 4,435 | 10.3 | 23.1 | 22.8 | 51.2 |
| 30 | The Kroger Co. | Food and Staples Retailing | 20,418 | 1,870 | 9.2 | 36.4 | 10.6 | 50.9 |
| 31 | AmerisourceBergen Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 16,174 | 890 | 5.5 | 35.5 | 11.2 | 50.6 |
| 32 | PPG Industries | Materials | 26,936 | 1,092 | 4.1 | 50.7 | -0.4 | 50.2 |
| 33 | SanDisk Corp. | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 15,934 | 1,820 | 11.4 | 18.3 | 26.9 | 50.1 |
| 34 | McKesson Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 37,075 | 2,544 | 6.9 | 41.5 | 6.0 | 50.0 |
| 35 | Ingersoll-Rand | Capital Goods | 17,746 | 2,053 | 11.6 | 52.3 | -1.7 | 49.7 |
| 36 | Cigna Corp. | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 24,181 | 1,211 | 5.0 | 38.0 | 7.9 | 48.8 |
| 37 | FedEx Corp. | Transportation | 44,889 | 1,465 | 3.3 | 29.6 | 14.7 | 48.7 |
| 38 | Adobe Systems | Software and Services | 29,933 | 1,505 | 5.0 | 42.0 | 4.6 | 48.6 |
| 39 | General Motors Co. | Automobiles and Components | 56,771 | 7,539 | 13.3 | 30.7 | 12.9 | 47.6 |
| 40 | Harris Corp. | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 7,461 | 622 | 8.3 | 36.6 | 7.7 | 47.0 |
| 41 | Viacom | Media | 38,974 | 7,053 | 18.1 | 41.3 | 3.9 | 46.9 |
| 42 | St. Jude Medical | Healthcare Equipment and Services | 18,078 | 1,825 | 10.1 | 28.0 | 14.6 | 46.7 |
| 43 | Tyson Foods | Food, Beverage and Tobacco | 11,496 | 987 | 8.6 | 26.8 | 15.7 | 46.7 |
| 44 | TE Connectivity | Technology Hardware and Equipment | 22,616 | 1,222 | 5.4 | 30.2 | 12.7 | 46.7 |
| 45 | Time Warner | Media | 63,077 | 5,565 | 8.8 | 44.4 | 1.5 | 46.6 |
| 46 | SLM Corp. | Diversified Financials | 11,465 | 1,129 | 9.8 | 43.7 | 1.9 | 46.5 |
| 47 | Assurant | Insurance | 4,826 | 805 | 16.7 | 29.0 | 13.1 | 45.9 |
| 48 | Aon | Insurance | 25,255 | 2,227 | 8.8 | 32.7 | 9.9 | 45.8 |
| 49 | Raytheon Co. | Capital Goods | 28,976 | 1,155 | 4.0 | 42.1 | 2.5 | 45.7 |
| 50 | KeyCorp. | Banks | 12,033 | 725 | 6.0 | 36.8 | 6.3 | 45.4 |
| Source: Fortuna Advisors Analysis using data from the Capital IQ database. Financial Data from December 2011 to December 2013. Includes the 486 members of the current S&P 500 that were public for the full period. Market Capitalization as of: 12/31/2013. Companies Included here if $ Total Buyback / Market Capitalization is greater than 4% or if $ Total Buyback is greater than $1 Billion. | ||||||||
