Re:Stock buybacks are dangerous for the economy
by Ntrails on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @05:48PM
(#22610841)
> If companies can’t issue buybacks or dividends with outstanding debt or unfounded pension liabilities society is simply better off.
This is just the sort of fun financial engineering challenge that will not end the way the rulemaker intended...
Re:Stock buybacks are dangerous for the economy
by Retric on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @07:26PM
(#22611778)
As stated it’s easy to have a parent company receiving payments for IP by a subsidiary with debt. But, that’s also why laws are longer than just one sentence and interpreted by people not machines.
Leveraged stock buybacks are essentially a bet that the company will fail as it maximizes investor ROI to fail with as much debt as possible. That destabilizes the economy and should be flat out illegal due to moral hazard.
It’s really simple. If companies can’t issue buybacks or dividends with outstanding debt or unfounded pension liabilities society is simply better off. Compromising to say cash on hand + 1/2 the value of physical property > debt is probably fine. Notice how neither of them would change the theoretical stock price of a company and thus invested returns, yet it’s a significant difference in reality.