Meaning & use
a stock buyback
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Meaning
nouncountablebusinessfinance
A company's act of buying its own shares from investors, usually to reduce the number of shares available.
Grammar: Countable: use 'a stock buyback' for one, 'stock buybacks' for several.
Patterns
- announce a stock buyback
- a stock buyback program
- fund a stock buyback
The company announced a $2 billion stock buyback to return cash to shareholders.
A stock buyback can raise the value of the remaining shares.
Critics say the stock buyback used money that should have gone to research.
Word forms
| plural | stock buybacks |
|---|
Common combinations
- announce a stock buyback
- The board announced a stock buyback after reporting strong profits.
- a stock buyback program
- The stock buyback program will run for two years.
- share buyback
- In the UK, analysts often call it a share buyback.
Synonyms and how they differ
- share repurchase
- A more formal term used especially in British English and official documents.
- buyback
- A short form; use it only when the context clearly refers to shares.
Opposites
Word family
- buy back phrasal verb
- To buy something again, especially something you sold earlier.
Commonly confused: a stock buyback or dividend?
a stock buyback vs dividend
A dividend is a cash payment to shareholders; a buyback is the company purchasing its own shares.
Practice
What does a company do in a stock buyback?
Choose one answer.
A stock buyback means the company purchases its own stock, so option 1 is correct. Option 0 is the opposite (a share issue), option 2 is an acquisition, and option 3 is a dividend.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “a stock buyback”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.