The popularity of share buybacks has catapulted since the early 1980s.
In the United States alone,corporate expenditures on share buybacks as
a percentage of earnings were ten times higher in the late 1990s than
they were in 1980. In the late 1990s, for the first time, companies spent
more money repurchasing their shares than paying dividends.
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Share
buybacks are also flourishing globally. In recent years,countries like the
United Kingdom and Canada have seen an increase in activity while
other nations that previously prohibited buybacks, including Germany
and Japan,have adopted provisions to make them acceptable.Notwith-
standing this surge in popularit ...