Putting Apple's monster buyback plan in perspective
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PUTTING APPLE'S MONSTER BUYBACK PLAN IN PERSPECTIVE
Apple Inc AAPL.O surprised investors with the announcement, along with its beter-than-fearedresults late on Wednesday, that it wasauthorized to buy back $110 billion worth of its stock.
This was the biggest buyback authorization, not just in Apple's history, but forany U.S. company, according to Winston Chua analyst at EPFR Liquidity Offerings, a provider of financial data on corporate actions such as buybacks, cash-take overs and new share offerings.
The firm's list of top 10 buyback programs features Apple frequently. Remember the iPhone maker's $100 billion authorization in 2018 and its $90 billion announcements in the last three years 2023, 2022 and 2021.
Chevron CVX.N has been the next biggest spender on its own stock, according to Chua, citing its $75 billion buyback authorization in January 2023. Then there's Alphabet with a $70 billion budget for buybacks in 2024, 2023 and 2022.
"Big companies are generating a lot of cash in their businesses and using that cash to return value to shareholders," said Chua.
While the first-quarter reporting season is still ongoing and all the numbers are not in yet, Chua noted an unusual buyback trend emerging so far.
"The number of companies making buyback announcements per day is the fewest in the last 15 quarters but the dollar amount is the highest," the analyst said.
Along with Apple and Alphabet, Chua pointed to buyback program announcements this quarter of $35.5 billion from Dutch chip equipment maker ASML Holding ASML.O, $6 billion from Bank of New York Mellon BK.N, $5 billion from Marathon Petroleum MPC.N and WW Grainger's GWW.N $4.8 billion authorization.
(Sinéad Carew, Lewis Krauskopf, Chuck Mikolajczak)
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