Buybacks and the Board: Director Perspectives on the Share Repurchase Revolution

In recent years, Standard and Poor’s 500 companies have repurchased their shares at a remarkable rate. S&P 500 companies acquired $166.3 billion of their own shares in the first quarter of 2016, more than in any other quarter since the financial crisis. In each of the last nine quarters, at least 370 S&P 500 companies repurchased shares, and over the last three years, S&P 500 companies spent over $1.5 trillion on buybacks.