General Electric
The woes of this once icon of American management know-how are now legend. A major facet are the company’s sorry buyback programs.
In a nutshell GE (GE) bought back over $40 billion of its stock over the past decade (some 15% of its market cap) at prices between $10 and $30. (At least half of the buying was done in the upper half of that range.) Today the stock trades for $9.
“Throughout the past decade, there is a high correlation between how expensive GE’s stock is versus current cash flows and how much stock the company repurchases,” write David Trainer and Sam McBride in New Constructs. ”By inefficiently utilizing valuable capital to buy back stock at inflated prices, the company destroyed value for long-term shareholders.”
这个曾经的美国管理知识偶像的困境现在已成为传奇。 一个主要方面是该公司的抱歉回购计划。

简而言之，通用电气（GE）在过去十年中回购了超过400亿美元的股票（约占其市值的15％），价格在10美元至30美元之间。 （至少有一半的买入是在该范围的上半部分完成的。）今天股票交易价格为9美元。

“在过去十年中，通用电气公司的股票与当前现金流的成本以及公司回购的股票数量之间存在高度相关性，”David Consiner和Sam McBride在New Constructs中写道。 “通过低效利用有价值的资本以高价回购股票，公司破坏了长期股东的价值。”

General Motors
The auto behemoth famously needed billions in government bailout funds during its bankruptcy filing in 2009. But not long before that it had billions in cash flow. Guess where much of the money went? Between 1986 and 2002 GM (GM) spent over $20 billion on stock buybacks.
Bloomberg notes that if GM had simply banked that $20 billion instead, “it would have had $35 billion in 2009 to stave off bankruptcy and respond to global competition.” GM stock prices back then? Shares peaked in April of 2000 at $93. It traded at $40 in 2007. Two years later the stock was delisted, essentially worthless.
这家汽车巨头在2009年破产申请期间需要数十亿美元的政府救助资金。但不久之前它就拥有数十亿美元的现金流。 猜猜这里有多少钱？ 1986年至2002年间，通用汽车（GM）在股票回购上花费了200多亿美元。

彭博社指出，如果通用汽车公司只是将200亿美元存入银行，那么“它将在2009年获得350亿美元以避免破产并应对全球竞争。”当时的通用汽车股价是多少？ 股票在2000年4月达到峰值，为93美元。 它在2007年交易价格为40美元。两年后该股票被摘牌，基本上没有价值。

Viacom

The erstwhile entertainment giant squandered its future by buying back stock and not investing in the business. It’s Paramount movie studio is a shadow of its former self and its TV networks like MTV and Nickelodeon are rickety.

According to Reuters: “Between October 2012 and March 2015, Viacom spent about $9.7 billion on buybacks, at an average cost of $73.58 per share, based on company filings - or about 55 percent more than the current stock price [on February 10, 2016].”

Over the past five years Viacom’s stock (VIA) has dropped over 65% (even taking into account a nice pop last month), versus a gain of 40% for rival Disney and 47% for the S&P 500. The stock currently trades for $29. At some point Viacom may make value investors rich, but they’ve been saying that for years.

这家昔日的娱乐巨头通过回购股票而不是投资该业务来浪费其未来。 它的派拉蒙影业工作室是其前身的影子，其电视网络如MTV和Nickelodeon则摇摇欲坠。

据路透社报道：“2012年10月至2015年3月期间，维亚康姆在回购上花费了约97亿美元，平均成本为每股73.58美元，基于公司提交的报告 - 比目前的股价高出约55％[2016年2月10日]]“。

在过去的五年里，维亚康姆的股票（VIA）下跌超过65％（上个月考虑到一个不错的流行音乐），而竞争对手迪斯尼的收益为40％，标准普尔500指数为47％。该股目前的交易价格为29美元。 在某些时候，维亚康姆可能会让价值投资者变得富裕，但他们多年来一直在说这些。

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