Thesis advisor: Thomas Chemmanur / Thesis advisor: David Solomon / This document comprises three essays regarding actual share repurchases. In Chapter 1, I show that external pressure in the form of equity analysts asking questions about a firm's actual repurchases can lead firms to more extensively follow through on their recently announced open market share repurchase programs. Such a phenomenon cannot be explained by mere firm characteristics. Instead, only analysts' questions that are shorter, more focused on share repurchases, and blunter in language appear to drive firms for greater follow-throughs. The second essay, detailed in Chapter 2, presents another motivation for firms to actually buy back shares under their active open market share repurchase programs. Specifically, firms with higher accounting quality will likely repurchase more shares to signal their accounting superiority after another firm operating in the same product market issues a financial restatement. As a result, the repurchasing firms separate from the pooling equilibrium with lower accounting quality firms and thus incur lower accounting-related litigation risks. Finally, in the third essay, located in Chapter 3, we compare cash dividends with share repurchases. Firms with greater heterogeneity in beliefs between insiders and outsiders, and among outside equity holders more likely prefer share repurchases to cash dividends for payout. Importantly, this finding can partially explain the disappearing dividend puzzle where rising heterogeneity in beliefs in the economy may have contributed to the substitution of cash dividends with share repurchases in the past two decades. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

Over the last two decades, share repurchases have emerged as the dominant payout channel, offering a more flexible means of returning excess cash to investors. However, little is known about the costs associated with payout-related financial flexibility. Using a unique identification strategy, we document a significant cost. We find that actual repurchase investments underperform hypothetical investments that mechanically smooth repurchase dollars through time by approximately two percentage points per year on average. This cost of financial flexibility is correlated with earnings management, managerial entrenchment, and less institutional monitoring. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Firms that announce open-market share repurchase programs are not obligated to follow through in the actual acquisition of shares. In fact, we find that the majority of firms fail to acquire the target number of shares specified at announcement and many firms fail to repurchase any shares at all. Therefore, the announcement of a share repurchase program has a degree of uncertainty regarding the announcing firms credibility. This study examines the possibility that market participants evaluate the credibility of a firms share repurchase announcement based on the firms previous share repurchase history. We examine 1,507 share repurchase programs for firms listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) from 1995 to 2005 and find that firms that have completed a higher proportion of previous share repurchase programs experience larger abnormal returns on the announcement of subsequent repurchase programs. Therefore, we conclude that the market reacts more favorably to the share repurchase announcements of credible firms compared to firms that lack credibility.

Firms that announce open-market share repurchase programs are not obligated to follow through in the actual acquisition of shares. In fact, we find that the majority of firms fail to acquire the target number of shares specified at announcement and many firms fail to repurchase any shares at all. Therefore, the announcement of a share repurchase program has a degree of uncertainty regarding the announcing firms credibility. This study examines the possibility that market participants evaluate the credibility of a firms share repurchase announcement based on the firms previous share repurchase history. We examine 1,507 share repurchase programs for firms listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) from 1995 to 2005 and find that firms that have completed a higher proportion of previous share repurchase programs experience larger abnormal returns on the announcement of subsequent repurchase programs. Therefore, we conclude that the market reacts more favorably to the share repurchase announcements of credible firms compared to firms that lack credibility.

The objective of my two essays together is to examine whether the trades made by the insiders prior to open market repurchase (OMR) announcements contain information that can be used to identify the repurchases that are motivated by undervaluation. The existing literature on shares repurchases suggests that while undervaluation has been a dominant motive behind repurchases for past few decades, identifying these undervalued firms still remains a challenge. The book-to-market ratio is commonly used as a proxy for mispricing; however, its ability to identify undervalued repurchasing firms has recently come into doubt (Chan et al., 2004). Instead, I propose using proxies based on insider trading to identify the undervalued repurchasing firms.In the first essay, I document a relation between insider trading and both the short- and long-run stock returns of open market repurchasing firms. My findings suggest that the personal trades made by insiders prior to the OMR announcements contain information that can be used to identify undervalued repurchasing firms. I use various measures of insider trading and show that firms with high (low) insider buying (selling) prior to repurchase announcements earn abnormal stock returns in both the short- and long-run. I also find a positive (negative) relation between insider buying (selling) and the actual repurchasing activity of the firms.In my second essay, I further test whether the trades made by insiders prior to OMR announcements contain information that can be used to identify the repurchases that are motivated by undervaluation by examining the post-announcement operating performance. I find a relation between insider trading and the post-announcement operating performance for the OMR firms that is consistent with the hypothesis that insiders' trades prior to OMR announcements are informative. Specifically, I find that firms with high insider buying prior to the OMR announcements outperform their corresponding control firms, whereas, firms with low insider buying do not. In addition, I test for a relation between insider trading and (a) the accruals management around OMR announcements, and (b) the market reaction to the earnings announcements made by the OMR firms. I find a weak evidence of insiders timing their trades along with accruals management. However, the market reaction to earnings announcements made by the OMR firms does not seem to vary with level of insider trading. Overall, the evidence is consistent with insiders of repurchasing firms knowing when their stocks are undervalued and they timing both their personal and firm level trades accordingly.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T16:45:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Regilane Lacerda Abreu.pdf: 2757231 bytes, checksum: bde3a61b38bf8099f9abd4fbd3aecfcd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-12 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This study aims at testing the semi-strong form of market efficiency, which presumes that the prices should reflect all publicly available information, and at verifying the effects of the anomaly of announcements determined by the behavioural finances, specifically, the announcement of share repurchase by the open companies in Brazil, analyzing its effects in the share market value of those companies listed on Bovespa through the application of event study whose data were obtained from both the Economatica database and the São Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa). The study concentrates in the verification of abnormal return on the announcement dates of share repurchase announced by the companies listed on Bovespa from 1998 to 2008. An event study methodology was applied using the logarithmic approach of continuous capitalization to estimate the returns of shares and the return of Ibovespa. Regarding that event, the return of shares of those companies in the Brazilian Stock Market was investigated in a period shorter than or longer than 20 days around the event, comparing it with the return of portfolio market represented by Ibovespa. It was possible to determine the presence of abnormal returns in the share prices statistically superior than the returns of Ibovespa, indicating that probably occurred a stronger valorization of the companies that announced share repurchase in the years studied according to the methodology adopted for this study. The t-Student test was applied for testing the statistical significance of the results, leading to the rejection of a null hypothesis that the abnormal variation in the return of the shares around the date of the repurchase announcement is equal to zero. The regression analysis certifies that the variation in the Ibovespa s portfolio market is not enough to explain the abnormal returns of the shares analysed. Those results lead to the rejection of the hypothesis that the semi-strong form of market was efficient in the period covered by this research since the presence of abnormal returns indicate that the market was not efficient in its semi-strong form after the share repurchase announcements in that period / Este estudo tem como objetivo testar a eficiência do mercado em sua forma semiforte, que pressupõe que os preços devem refletir toda informação publicamente disponível, e verificar os efeitos da anomalia de anúncios determinada pelas finanças comportamentais; neste caso, o anúncio de recompra de ações por parte das companhias abertas no Brasil, analisando seus efeitos no valor de mercado da ação das empresas listadas na Bovespa, por meio da aplicação do estudo de eventos cujos dados foram extraídos da base de dados Economática e da Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo (Bovespa). O estudo se concentra na verificação de retorno anormal em torno das datas de anúncios de recompra de ações divulgados pelas empresas listadas na Bovespa no período de 1998 a 2008. Neste contexto, utilizou-se a metodologia de estudo de evento, considerando a abordagem Logarítmica de capitalização contínua para estimar os retornos das ações e o retorno do Ibovespa. Considerando este evento, investigou-se o retorno das ações das respectivas empresas no mercado acionário brasileiro, em um período -20 e +20 dias em torno do evento, comparando-o com o retorno da carteira de mercado, representada pelo Ibovespa. Foi possível determinar a presença de retornos anormais nos preços das ações estatisticamente superiores aos retornos do Ibovespa, o que indica que provavelmente ocorreu uma maior valorização das companhias que anunciaram recompra de ações nos anos estudados, segundo a metodologia deste estudo. O teste t-Student foi utilizado para testar a significância estatística dos resultados, que levaram a rejeitar a hipótese nula de que a variação anormal no retorno das ações em torno da data de anúncio da recompra é igual a zero. A análise de regressão atesta que a variação na carteira de mercado, Ibovespa, não é suficiente para explicar os retornos anormais das ações estudadas. Esses resultados levam a rejeição da hipótese de que o mercado se mostra eficiente em sua forma semiforte no período da pesquisa, uma vez que a presença de retornos anormais indicam que o mercado não foi eficiente em sua forma semiforte após os anúncios de recompra de ações no período

Share repurchases in Sweden has since legalization in 2000 gained momentum. Similar to other corporate events, there are studies that examine whether this affects the share price performance. With studies in the U.S. that measured excess returns of approximately 3,5 percent on the announcement day; Swedish buybacks, holding a tighter regulation is of interest to study. The Stockholm Stock Exchange regulation regarding reporting is also similar to the Stock Exchange in Hong Kong. Unlike most previous research using only the announcement of a buyback, where an actual repurchase cannot be assured, the stock exchanges in this study requires disclosure on a daily basis, which means that the announcement can be linked to an actual share repurchase. The study aims to examine how the stock markets in Stockholm and Hong Kong react to share repurchases. Thereby judge whether the notice gives a negative or positive effect. The problem formulation takes the following approach: Is there abnormal returns at the announcement of share repurchases in the Stockholm stock exchange and the Hong Kong stock exchange.  The following sub questions will further be explored: Are there differences between the size of the abnormal return and industry? Is there a correlation between the abnormal returns and corporate market-to-book value? The survey is conducted through an event study, measuring abnormal return during a window of ten days prior to the announcement day and ten days after. Repurchases are studied during the period 2000-03-10 until 2011-04-10 in order to cover the entire period since legalization in Sweden. The sectors used are: industrials, financials, consumer discretionaries and information technology. Furthermore a regression analysis consisting of the variables market-to-book, divided into low and high values, and abnormal return is constructed. Through a theoretical synthesis, consisting of previous research, signaling hypotheses, the efficient market hypothesis and agency theory, the empirical data is analyzed. The conducted study shows low positive abnormal returns (AAR) for both Stockholm and Hong Kong at 0,37 percent and 0,38 percent for the announcement day respectively with a certain significance days before the announcement. Small differences exist between sectors, with financials showing highest abnormal return and consumer discretionaries the lowest in the two markets. There is furthermore a significant value between high market-to-book values and negative abnormal returns.

This study examines the market reactions to share repurchase announcements made by companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2012. We use an event study methodology and the Capital Asset Pricing Model to determine if there is an announcement effect when a share repurchase announcement is made. Our analysis show that consistent with signalling theory and the announcement effect, share repurchase announcements are associated with positive abnormal returns. The average abnormal return and cumulative average abnormal return noted was 0.46% and 3.81% respectively for the event period (t -20, t +20). There was an observable trend of declining share prices before the share repurchase announcement however the decline in the shares prices was not significant. We found some evidence of market timing ability in 2005 and 2010 however as a collective, we found no significant difference in timing a share repurchase announcement. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Share repurchases reached a decade-high level in 2019, just as US equity indices reached a historical zenith, a move in tandem that supports more than merely a correlative relation. However, this relationship moves beyond that of just a close tandem move in indices alongside share repurchases, but to the behavior of firms which began to leverage themselves in order to promote the evermore profitable strategy of large buyback programs. Those repurchases indicate an idiosyncratic and procyclical leveraging that, while much smaller in scope and less combustible by lack of derivative amplification, led to the gorging on unsustainable debt described by Hyman Minsky and experienced in the Great Financial Crisis in the banking industry. In this case, the 'Minsky moment' that may have inevitably popped the self-promotion bubble came in the form of the 'black swan' event of the coronavirus outbreak. This paper aims to historically frame the issues, with delimitation of the effect of buybacks from 2009 to early 2020 with scant reference to historical factors influencing the increased usage of share repurchase programs. The analysis within this historical scope will reflect empirical measures on the market-wide level of share buybacks and debt levels alongside the concurrent equity index acceleration....

This study examines how the relation of earnings and payout is influenced by country-level moderators of investor protection and creditor rights. By using an international sample with 42,148 firm-year observations in 3,658 firms during the years 2001-2017, I find that earningspayout relation is strong. Further, I present evidence that the earnings-payout relation is alleviated in weak investor protection and creditor right countries due to the negative influence of dividends. Although share repurchases positively impact the strong earnings-payout relation, the positive effect of share repurchases is weaker compared to the negative one of dividends. As a consequence, in weak investor protection and creditor right countries, the strong earnings-payout relation is alleviated when it is tested with the logit regression.