Leveraged buybacks reduce the multiple. It’s not a cheat code to make your stock go up.

This is pretty insane actually. Is there a common metric that captures which companies are funding buybacks with debt? or is it easy to figure out? I am not a finance person.

No. But it's generally common knowledge. Here are some articles

https://fortune.com/2019/08/20/stock-buybacks-debt-financed/

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/29/buybacks-companies-increasin...

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11393

From the last one: "Data on the percentage of buybacks that are leveraged are inconsistent. For example, the bank J.P. Morgan Chase reported that leveraged buybacks accounted for 14% of overall buybacks during 2018, which it said was the lowest percentage since 2009. But Yardeni Research, a respected securities market research firm, reported that they were 56% of the total."

this is another one of those things you learn in business school, a commonly disdained yet imminently useful education, particularly for engineers.

If the long term debt increases during a period of buybacks, particularly more than net income, than yeah this is the case. And yes that happens.

BTW, this is exactly what private equity companies do when they take a company private. They borrow a lot of money to buy the outstanding stock. Often the company they are buying with debt (held by the company) is not profitable. And sometimes the company goes bankrupt.

So yes this happens.

With interest rates as low as they are (on both government backed and corporate investment grade bonds) and a reasonable forecast of higher inflation ahead, why shouldn't companies borrow for a variety of corporate activities, both operational and treasury?

They should, and they should use the money to do the corporate activities you mentioned.

A lot of the companies getting into debt have their own cash reserves.

> funded by debt

Or recently, government support packages.

Which is debt.