Bloomberg Surveillance · Thursday, September 3, 2026
David Bonson distinguishes between share buybacks and dividends, emphasizing that "most share buybacks are a cost to the company, not a return of capital." He argues that many buybacks are primarily for executive compensation and do not necessarily represent a return of capital to shareholders, especially when share counts increase.
“No, they're not. And there's also a whole chapter about this. Well, first of all, I'm going to insist that we add the word net share buybacks. Because I am so tired of companies saying we return capital shareholders and yet there's more shares now than there were before. Really, most share buybacks are a cost to the company, not a return of capital. Most of them are executive comp, incentive comp, employee comp. There's nothing wrong with that. It might be a good use of capital, but it's not a return of capital to shareholders.”