Saw this on /vt/, Does any stock conneisures know what does this means?
That's like a 1970s mentality lol. Companies don't do regular scheduled dividends any more, buybacks are more tax efficient (perfectly normal and legal tax avoidance).You do a buyback, roughly in order from good to bad if
1) this was intended way for shareholders to get money instead of dividends when they were released. Instead of paying them regularly you oblige to buy it from them after a given time and pay nothing until then. 2) you don't need the money anymore and/or want to cut costs on paying dividends, usually when either you finished going through a big restructure, or you are low on cash and would rather dip into your bank account than admit you are in red. 5) tax evasion and money laundering. No idea about Japan but in some places it's exempted from taxation and you can quickly wash a big amount of cash through official sources.
What a buyback means is that the company is giving/returning money to shareholders rather than keeping it to reinvest. It can be a sign that the company is doing well, that it has more money than it knows what to do with. But it's also a sign that the company might have stopped expanding or run out of ideas, might be reaching a stage where they're focused on profitability and cutting costs rather than growth. Either Anycolor have made a lot of money, or they're not going to spend so much money going forward.