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Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 20th, 2018, 11:05 am
by GoSeigen
Dod101 wrote:
GoSeigen wrote:
Of course div per share increases; that's why the price is higher. However, the market cap (DCF of all cashflows) does not increase. Share price on its own is not a measure of the value of a company!

If you hold a company's shares and the company in turn is buying its own shares and you continue holding then by your own definition the company is buying at a good price (i.e. you think the price is still not high enough to sell). I have considered this very question with my holdings of BP and LLOY: I have come to the conclusion that I am actually satisfied for those companies to be "reinvesting" my dividends for me at current prices.


The dividend per share does not 'of course' increase.

The whole paragraph should have been read as a whole. When I said of course div per share increases, it meant that the future dividends to be paid would be shared among fewer shares. The dividend might not be immediately increased by the board, but it will have to be at some point in order to maintain total dividend payments at their original level. Doesn't really matter whether that happens at the next div declaration or some future one: the fact that it will be is priced in immediately.

It might but not necessarily; the company might decide to hold the dividend and so the dividend costs it less in the aggregate. It will probably be a marginal increase in any case, unless it is a truly massive buyback (relative that is to the total number of shares in issue) I do not think I ever claimed that the market cap increased and in any case it is usually used as a definition for the aggregate price of all outstanding shares, so it might even fall because there is no pro rata or automatic increase in the share price as a result of a share buyback.

On your second point above, I think with respect that your comment is just a bit too glib. I will sometimes continue to hold a share even if I think the price is a bit 'toppy' because I might think that events will soon catch up with it. But I would hope that the FD will have done his own calculations and decided if his company's shares are worth buying in at the current market price because if it is known that the Company is standing in the market with an open chequebook, prices might rise anyway so he has to be especially careful.

Dod


Glib or not, it's the way I think. I as investor must take responsibility for all. If the company is buying the shares at a price I think is unreasonable, why would I not reduce my own holding in response? I'm not saying everyone does this as an immediate knee jerk, but in aggregate, if you consider all the shareholders this is effectively what happens.

GS

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 20th, 2018, 11:15 am
by Gengulphus
GoSeigen wrote:"Boosting share price" has little to do with it IMO. A company cannot boost its market valuation by buying a few shares. The price will go up but the number of issued shares goes down, so the company is valued the same. ...

That might happen, but if it does, the price rise can be expected to be short-term, due to the buybacks causing a significant supply/demand imbalance (and that actually indicates that the company is buying back the shares too quickly). When the buybacks stop, that imbalance will cease and the price can be expected to fall again.

And the company's valuation can be expected not to stay the same as a result of the buyback, but to fall. After all, all that has changed about the company is that cash has left it - all else being equal (which of course it very rarely is!), it can be expected to have dropped in value by the amount of cash spent on the buybacks, just as a dividend-paying company can be expected to fall in value by the amount paid out in dividends. For the dividend-paying company, that lower company valuation coupled with its number of shares in issue remaining the same results in a reduced share price - specifically, it's what lies behind the price drop as a share goes ex-dividend. For the company doing share buybacks, the lower company valuation is accompanied by a lower number of shares in issue, which can be expected to result in a roughly unchanged share price - a bit higher if the company manages to underpay for the shares it buys back, a bit lower if it overpays (which is why buying shares back quickly enough to drive the share price up is too quickly).

All of the effects I've described above are quite small unless the company buys back its shares much too quickly, and like ex-dividend drops, are generally lost in the 'noise' of market fluctuations - so don't expect to see them easily in share price charts, etc! And just like dividends, buybacks are basically funded by the company's everyday operations, which (hopefully!) are raising the company's value by a tiny amount every day - another effect lost in that 'noise'.

From the point of view of a shareholder who continues to hold the shares, the roughly unchanged share price is due to the combination of (a) the cash currently being spent on buying back shares definitely not coming their way, lowering the share price by their share of that cash; (b) the smaller number of shares in issue meaning that they get a slightly larger fraction of all future payouts to shareholders, raising the share price by their share of that cash. It's actually quite similar to what would happen if the company instead paid out the cash spent on the buybacks as a special dividend and they immediately reinvested it: their bank balance would end up unchanged overall but they would get a slightly larger fraction of all future payouts (due to owning more shares rather than to there being fewer shares in issue, but it's a larger fraction regardless).

And that similarity is basically the key to whether a long-term holder should welcome buybacks: if they would reinvest extra dividends paid by the company in its shares, buybacks are welcome, but not if they would take extra dividends as spending money or reinvest them in something different. That might be counterbalanced by convenience if one only slightly preferred reinvesting in something else to reinvesting in the same shares: buybacks produce the effect (roughly) of a dividend reinvestment with absolutely no work for the shareholder. If the shares are held in a taxable account, it might be rather more significantly counterbalanced by tax effects, as buybacks are also free of them. And if the shareholder is not a long-term holder, but looking to sell, it might be quite strongly counterbalanced by the short-term price effects of the buybacks...

Gengulphus

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 20th, 2018, 3:14 pm
by TheMotorcycleBoy
ap8889 wrote:A share buyback is far preferable from a tax point of view than a special dividend.

A special dividend will lead to unanticipated additional income, potentially subject to income tax (if held outside a Sipp or ISA wrapper), which can screw up ones tax planning. Imagine an unexpected special pushing you over the threshold for the brutal tax hit that is the pensions annual allowance taper. Not cool.

The additional capital value of your shares in the company after a buyback, well, that can be realized partially or wholly at a convenient time of the shareholders choice, all the better to make use of the sometimes overlooked CGT allowance.

Specials are just about the worst way of returning money to shareholders. I hate them.

Ok, thanks for this.

I'd not really appreciated that of course for some the tax angle is crucial. But anyway I'm reassured - at first I'd assumed that the buyback was a sign of trouble, but of course it isn't really. It's just another way (or so it seems) for the company to pass on some of the profits.

I can only say that I'd taken my earlier alarmist view, since in some of the tech firms, I've worked in, share-buybacks do happen from time to time, and the rumour-mill usually spreads a fair amount of negativity around the workplace.

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 20th, 2018, 5:08 pm
by DiamondEcho
Melanie wrote:
GoSeigen wrote:The individual investor has a higher value to her shares because after the buyback she has a larger equity stake in the company. That's all.
GS

Now that is a good point. I'd not looked at it that way, but yes proportion wise it is a good assessment.


Plus the bought-back shares are placed 'in Treasury' and/or cancelled, but either way are ineligible for the dividend: So the div is more focused, ie higher.

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 20th, 2018, 5:14 pm
by DiamondEcho
Melanie wrote:Yeah I know. I just don't why they choose to take this line, rather than pay out a Special Dividend, in the same way that the likes of Morrison and Imperial Brands have both recently announced. Matt


A buy-back is not a taxable event, the shareholder retains discretion as to when it ultimately will or might be. A Special, to many investors, is an immediate taxable event, which would perhaps negate some of the value of having funded that event happening in the first place via buy-backs.

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 20th, 2018, 5:15 pm
by TheMotorcycleBoy
ap8889 wrote:Hi Melanie,

The number of times I have had to bite my lip in conversation with coworkers! They spout off about some great get rich quick investment idea they have heard of where it is plain they lack both subject matter knowledge and the slightest mathematical skill to analyse the situation. These chumps are quite happy to go 100% Tesla stock, and tell all their coworkers to do the same. And those are the ones bothering to save.

So ignore your coworkers. If you choose to, you can become an expert in this stuff. It's not difficult, and it will put you way ahead of the crowd. Good luck with Dominos.

Many thanks for this!

We are trying our best!

Mel (and Matt)

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 21st, 2018, 3:58 am
by Gengulphus
DiamondEcho wrote:
Melanie wrote:
GoSeigen wrote:The individual investor has a higher value to her shares because after the buyback she has a larger equity stake in the company. That's all.

Now that is a good point. I'd not looked at it that way, but yes proportion wise it is a good assessment.

Plus the bought-back shares are placed 'in Treasury' and/or cancelled, but either way are ineligible for the dividend: So the div is more focused, ie higher.

That's not really "Plus", because everything being said here is different aspects of the investor owning a larger fraction of the company after the buybacks than before. I.e. they're all basically one thing, while "Plus" suggests they are additional to each other.

They're also not too well described. The individual investor does not necessarily have a higher value to their shares because there's a "bigger slice of a smaller pie" effect: they own a higher fraction of the company, but it's a less valuable company because it no longer has the cash spent on the buybacks. And owning the higher fraction of the company does mean the investor gets a higher fraction of whatever amount of money the company decides to pay out as dividends in the future, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the company pays out a higher dividend per share: it could also mean that it decides to pay out less cash on dividends than it would otherwise have done.

Gengulphus

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 21st, 2018, 7:39 am
by TheMotorcycleBoy
DiamondEcho wrote:
Melanie wrote:
GoSeigen wrote:The individual investor has a higher value to her shares because after the buyback she has a larger equity stake in the company. That's all.
GS

Now that is a good point. I'd not looked at it that way, but yes proportion wise it is a good assessment.


Plus the bought-back shares are placed 'in Treasury' and/or cancelled, but either way are ineligible for the dividend: So the div is more focused, ie higher.

I still also think, that if shares are bought back, then less are for sale on the open market (as brokers have just removed them from their holdings), so "all things being equal", the share price I would have thought would rise due to diminished supply and similar demand.

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 21st, 2018, 8:20 am
by Lootman
Melanie wrote:"all things being equal", the share price I would have thought would rise due to diminished supply and similar demand.

Leaving aside all the theoretical speculation about whether the share price should go up, and if so by how much, one thing that is often seen is that the share price goes up as a reaction to the announcement of the buyback. This makes sense, at least if the buyback is of significant size, because it represents a new source of demand and a potential lowering of supply. The actual purchase of shares might then not be accompanied by a rise in price because it was already priced in by the annoucnement.

So regardless of whether you think buybacks are a good thing or not, in general it is considered positive news and a driver of higher returns.

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 21st, 2018, 8:41 am
by TheMotorcycleBoy
Lootman wrote:So regardless of whether you think buybacks are a good thing or not, in general it is considered positive news and a driver of higher returns.

Yup, it seems good to us now. Glad to have chatted about it.

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 21st, 2018, 11:39 am
by Gengulphus
Melanie wrote:I still also think, that if shares are bought back, then less are for sale on the open market (as brokers have just removed them from their holdings), so "all things being equal", the share price I would have thought would rise due to diminished supply and similar demand.

Yes, but that change to the supply/demand situation is a short-term effect, lasting as long as the buyback does, and goes away when the buyback ends. It's desirable if you're looking to sell your shares; it's actively undesirable if you're looking to hold them, because a higher share price while the buyback lasts means that the company pays more per share that it buys back and so buys back fewer shares with the money it has available for the buyback. The fewer shares the company buys back, the less the fraction of the company you own increases, and so the lower the beneficial effect of the buyback on your share of whatever cash the company pays out later in dividends and other distributions.

Of course, you don't have to decide in advance whether you're a holder or a seller. The more the buyback drives the price up, the more attractive it becomes to be a seller, and the less attractive it becomes to be a holderer - so all but the most dedicated holders will probably become sellers if the price is driven high enough...

As to why the price often rises when buybacks are announced, at least part of it is IMHO that the market can see a sucker coming. If a large holder (i.e. one holding a good deal more shares than the market can comfortably absorb in a reasonably short timescale) were to announce that their holding is up for sale and they're going to sell no matter what, the result would be that a good number of potential buyers will see the possibility of picking up shares at bargain prices, and hold back on purchasing until the price drops to irresistible-bargain level. So they don't merely increase the supply of shares, but by announcing their intention, they cause demand to decrease, and the price is liable to fall until enough potential buyers reckon the shares have become an irresistible bargain.

Likewise in reverse for buybacks: a company announcing that it is going to spend £Xb on buybacks is likely to make quite a few potential sellers hold out for higher prices than they might otherwise have done, and thus indirectly cause a decrease in supply as well as directly increasing demand. The net result is that when I'm not really looking to sell, I'll reckon that the best buybacks are the ones where the company says that they'll only buy back shares when they reckon they represent good value, leaving the rest of the market guessing when they'll reckon that, and the least good buybacks are ones where they say that they're going to buy back £Xb worth of shares, more-or-less no matter what. Unfortunately, too many buyback announcements are of the latter type. (Of course, if I'm looking to sell my shares and just looking out for the best opportunity to sell, I'll reckon exactly the opposite. But for me, that's the less common situation - and on top of that, the companies whose shares I'm looking to sell are relatively unlikely to be doing buybacks.)

One other point about the price often rising when a company announces that it is going to buy back its shares is that the announcement often happens as part of an announcement of good results, and always carries the implication that the company has the cash available to do the buybacks. I.e. it's generally accompanied by good news about the company - so it's pretty hard to distinguish between the price rising as a general response to the good news and as a specific response to the buybacks being announced.

Gengulphus

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 21st, 2018, 11:59 am
by toofast2live
Some interesting thoughts on buy backs here;

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4175740-buyback-bubble

Not least the clear signs that ceos buy their shares at market peaks...

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 21st, 2018, 12:35 pm
by Dod101
I am surprised at the amount of misunderstandings there is on the subject of buybacks. It is not that difficult nor is anything automatic about the outcome. In fact about the only two certainties are that the continuing shareholders end up with a marginally larger slice of the pie ( or what is called 'economic interest' in the company, which is of course marginally smaller as Gengulphus has said because cash has left the company) and, if the aggregate of the dividend cost remains the same, the dividend per share will rise.

The effects are usually only marginal because the amount of the share buyback is usually only a small proportion of the number of shares in issue. In fact Alliance Trust, when it bought out Elliot last year, was one of the few cases where there was a really significant fall in the number of shares in issue and indeed in the capitalisation of the Trust.

Going back to Domino's though, I think it is pertinent to note that Domino's does not seem to be using surplus capital for its share purchases, but rather borrowings presumably to make the Balance Sheet more 'efficient'. This is important because it is introducing gearing which in itself is no bad thing, but it is a change of tactics it would seem from the recent past when it did have surplus cash in the company.

Dod

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 21st, 2018, 3:48 pm
by GoSeigen
Gengulphus wrote:
Melanie wrote:I still also think, that if shares are bought back, then less are for sale on the open market (as brokers have just removed them from their holdings), so "all things being equal", the share price I would have thought would rise due to diminished supply and similar demand.

Yes, but that change to the supply/demand situation is a short-term effect, lasting as long as the buyback does, and goes away when the buyback ends.



I struggle with arguments about "supply" and "demand" of shares because they are meaningless terms which no-one ever defines.

I would define supply as "the number of shares outstanding in the market" and demand as "the current level of desired portfolio allocation of investors"; then it has exactly the same meaning as my earlier statement of the situation but it leaves me wondering how using the terms supply and demand add to understanding of the situation.


You seem to view supply and demand in a more tenuous way -- I'd love to know your definition in the context of the quoted sentence above, and how I might measure them.


GS

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 21st, 2018, 6:21 pm
by TheMotorcycleBoy
GoSeigen wrote:I struggle with arguments about "supply" and "demand" of shares because they are meaningless terms which no-one ever defines.

I would define supply as "the number of shares outstanding in the market" and demand as "the current level of desired portfolio allocation of investors"; then it has exactly the same meaning as my earlier statement of the situation but it leaves me wondering how using the terms supply and demand add to understanding of the situation.


You seem to view supply and demand in a more tenuous way -- I'd love to know your definition in the context of the quoted sentence above, and how I might measure them.
GS

I'm not sure who you'd been asking the question of, GS, me or Gengulphus....

Regardless, but as you know already, me and Mel are newbies, so please, please take it easy.

Anyway, when I ring (well we do it electronically) the broker and say "I'd like to purchase 500 DOM shares", presuming the person says yes, then where does the broker find these shares from there and then? Do brokers have a stash of DOM shares lying around, or do they need to doing a bit of phoning around?

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 21st, 2018, 6:30 pm
by tjh290633
Melanie wrote:Anyway, when I ring (well we do it electronically) the broker and say "I'd like to purchase 500 DOM shares", presuming the person says yes, then where does the broker find these shares from there and then? Do brokers have a stash of DOM shares lying around, or do they need to doing a bit of phoning around?

When you put a request to buy in your electronic system, usually the message will say "please wait while we find the best price from the various sources".

With shares traded on SETS this either means that they look at what is on offer and pick the best (lowest price) or they put your order into SETS and see who fills your order.

Obviously their system does this automatically, but Level 2 shows what is being offered and sought. You can probably find a demonstration on ADVFN, among other providers.

TJH

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 21st, 2018, 7:46 pm
by GoSeigen
Melanie wrote:
GoSeigen wrote:I struggle with arguments about "supply" and "demand" of shares because they are meaningless terms which no-one ever defines.

I would define supply as "the number of shares outstanding in the market" and demand as "the current level of desired portfolio allocation of investors"; then it has exactly the same meaning as my earlier statement of the situation but it leaves me wondering how using the terms supply and demand add to understanding of the situation.


You seem to view supply and demand in a more tenuous way -- I'd love to know your definition in the context of the quoted sentence above, and how I might measure them.
GS

I'm not sure who you'd been asking the question of, GS, me or Gengulphus....

Regardless, but as you know already, me and Mel are newbies, so please, please take it easy.

Anyway, when I ring (well we do it electronically) the broker and say "I'd like to purchase 500 DOM shares", presuming the person says yes, then where does the broker find these shares from there and then? Do brokers have a stash of DOM shares lying around, or do they need to doing a bit of phoning around?


Ah, now if this is what people mean by supply and demand it's extremely transient and I think meaningless for understanding share price movements.

TJH has had a bash at the literal answer to your question. It's a bit more complicated than that as a trade can be filled many ways, e.g. via an order-book, or through a market maker, or OTC and probably other ways too. The broker is usually only an intermediary between you and these sellers. There are many other trades also going on involving institutions like investment funds, hedge funds, insurers etc. If a trade were completed through a market maker, the MM would be obliged to make a market in the advertised minimum size of the stock: the MM would not normally care where the shares are: he might even go short and having a couple of days to fill the trade he can go around and find stock to cover if he likes, or wait for a retail seller, or cover his short with another counterparty who wants to be short. All them MM needs to do to make money is set his price right and manage his risk properly -- which is pretty much what you and I should be doing too!

So I don't see that this very short-term "are there shares lying around" interpretation of supply and demand has any significance whatsoever. You see many punters pontificating sagely on such things especially at lse.co.uk BBs but IMO they really don't know what they are talking about...


GS
P.S. My reply was to Gengulphus, hopefully he'll give us his view on supply and demand.

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 22nd, 2018, 11:18 am
by Gengulphus
GoSeigen wrote:I would define supply as "the number of shares outstanding in the market" and demand as "the current level of desired portfolio allocation of investors"; then it has exactly the same meaning as my earlier statement of the situation but it leaves me wondering how using the terms supply and demand add to understanding of the situation.

You seem to view supply and demand in a more tenuous way -- I'd love to know your definition in the context of the quoted sentence above, and how I might measure them.

Supply is the number of shares that people are currently looking to sell on the market, and demand is the number people are currently looking to buy on the market. The balance between the two is what changes share prices.

I don't regard that as any more "tenuous" than your definition. Neither supply nor demand is completely measurable under my definitions (level 2 gives an idea for big caps at least, but things like "iceberg orders" render it inaccurate), but they also aren't under your definitions. E.g. the number of shares a company has in issue at any one time is an exactly-knowable number, but how many of them count as "outstanding in the market"?

Gengulphus

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 23rd, 2018, 8:31 am
by TheMotorcycleBoy
Apologies if a lot of you have debated this to death already, but regards the philosophy of buybacks it seems that there are plenty of critics:

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/12/a ... he-market/
https://hbr.org/2014/09/profits-without-prosperity

I've skimmed these and a couple of others and the short-term VS long-term message I'm receiving doesn't seem all that inspiring.

Matt

Re: Domino Pizzas bought back own shares yesterday

Posted: May 23rd, 2018, 9:11 am
by Dod101
These articles are mostly applicable to the US markets where share buybacks are I think more common than here. They cover most of the ground we have been discussing I think. It is presumably becoming a real issue in the US and if they clamped down on them I assume we would follow since accounting standards are quite international these days.

Dod