Despite this the board have been buying back stock both this year and last, and plan to buy back not far off £100m in total (around 6.3% of market cap). not only that, the board have decided to increase leverage, partly to fund higher buybacks than if only the balance of net income was used.
surprise surprise one of the key performance metrics for executive pay is EPS growth:
Underlying EPS measures the Company’s success in delivering long‐term profit growth, a key contributor to the Company’s valuation, and is considered by the Committee to be the
most appropriate measure of long‐term financial performance. It is also used by the Board to determine success in executing our strategy.
does anyone know if EPS targets exclude the effect of buybacks? if not it looks like the board are brazenly destroying value to help ensure they get their bonuses.