Last week, Boeing announced
an $18 billion share buyback plan, and earlier this month, Home Depot
announced it would launch a $15 billion share buyback program. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer and computer software company Oracle also both announced share repurchases earlier this month —
$10 billion and
$12 billion endeavors, respectively — and banking group ANZ announced
a $1.5 billion share repurchase earlier this week.
n the last two weeks, Hyatt Hotels, Jet Blue, and T-Mobile all announced share buybacks of their own, and on Wednesday, the same day the tax cuts were signed into law, telecommunications company Liberty Global announced a $2 billion share buyback. Nasdaq put the announcement on its website, and the first line reveals everything you need to know: “In a move to enhance shareholders’ wealth, Liberty Global plc’s LBTYA board of directors approved a new share repurchase program.”
Share buybacks are a way of enhancing the shareholder wealth, and, facing the prospect of a major tax cut, that’s exactly what many large corporations have decided to do. The repurchasing does not create new jobs or increase wages for workers.
The folks at Nasdaq aren’t the only ones saying the quiet part loud. On Tuesday, Tim Sloan, CEO of notoriously fraudulent bank Wells Fargo, told CNN Money what he planned to do with extra cash in which they will now be rolling.
“Is it our goal to increase return to our shareholders and do we have an excess amount of capital? The answer to both is, yes,” Sloan said. “So our expectation should be that we will continue to increase our dividend and our share buybacks next year and the year after that and the year after that.”