Does the banks’ performance improve after share buybacks?

Abstract

Share buybacks have become a popular way for companies to return capital to shareholders. However, there is an ongoing debate regarding the impact of share buybacks on the performance and shareholder value. This paper starts by examining the literature on share buybacks and aims at testing the signalling hypothesis (ie share buybacks are carried out to signal undervaluation of the stock) on share repurchases performed by banks. More specifically, the analysis conducted measured the impact of share buybacks on banks’ performance as measured by the return on equity (ROE). The results show that there is low significant positive linear relationship between banks’ share buybacks and their ROE.

Keywords

• share buybacks
• banks’ performance
• return on equity
• shareholders’ value
• pay-out policy
• banking