U.S. companies have announced another round of aggressive share repurchases in response to the savings from the recent corporate tax cuts, and investors can also benefit from the plans through a targeted exchange traded fund strategy.
Large U.S. companies have announced share buybacks exceeding $200 billion in the past three months, or more than double for the same period year-over-year, the Wall Street Journal reports.
For example, some companies that have announced share repurchases include Cisco Systems Inc. at $25 billion, Wells Fargo & Co. at about $21 billion, PepsiCo Inc. at $15 billion, AbbVie Inc. at $10 billion, Amgen Inc. at $10 billion and Alphabet Inc. at $8.6 billion.
An uptick in buyback announcements occurred in December as Washington lawmakers put the finishing touches on a bill to cut U.S. taxes by $15 trillion over a decade. The tax overhaul plans reduced the tax rate on large corporations to 21% from 35% and it also included a low one-time reprieve on profits hoarded from abroad to encourage repatriating more than $2 trillion held in overseas subsidiaries.
The result is Corporate America is once again flush with cash, and many are looking at their new found cash stores as a means to produce more value for investors through share buybacks. Of the S&P 500 companies, 28% revealed they would use the tax gains to increase shareholder returns, according to Morgan Stanley’s analysis – the bank expects companies to spend about 43% of their savings on buybacks and dividends, and 30% on capital expenditures and labor.