Levine: Anti-buyback arguments rely on a strange bias against returning capital
Matt Levine · Matt Levine – Money Stuff (Capital Allocators, EP.97) · Apr 29, 2019 · at 18:24
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Matt Levine analyzes corporate share repurchase debates with Ted Seides.
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“There is a strand of the buyback debate that says companies should never return money to shareholders. It says once money comes into a company, it should stay in that company forever, which is obviously not what anyone says, but it's like sort of the implied Position that returning money to shareholders is always bad because companies should always be spending it on some other thing, whether it's employee benefits or lowering costs for customers, but it's often expressed as long-term value. It's expressed as like, you have this money and you should invest it in like building stuff in the business rather than waste it by giving it back to shareholders, which I think is a sort of strange bias to have.”
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