Fall 2006 VOLUME 12:3
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Fall 2006 VOLUME 12:3 PDV OBSERVATIONS A Quarterly Newsletter for PDV Clients and Friends Share Repurchase Programs By Che H. Lee President Every potential equity investment has both positive and negative attributes. Our job at PDV is to balance these attrib- utes against each other and compare the net overall result to the investment’s prevailing market price to determine valuation. As stock price and business value tend to converge over time, undervalued situations offer potential gains for clients. A company buying back its own shares is almost universally portrayed as a positive investment attribute. But are all stock buy-back programs categorically good? The common perception is that they are because buy-backs reduce the number of shares outstanding. Consider the following illustrative example. Firm A has one million shares outstanding, and generates reported net earnings of $10 million, which equates to $10 per share. Now, assume that Firm A buys back 100,000 shares of its own stock, leaving only 900,000 shares outstanding. Since the amount of reported net income remains at $10 million, this now equates to $11.11 per share of reported net earnings. For each share you own, a higher level of reported net earnings “belongs” to you, as part owner of the company, after the buy-back. Since it is commonly accepted that stock prices over time tend to follow the trend of reported net earnings per share, the common perception is that you have benefited from the buy-back. Unfortunately, the foregoing calculations ignore two critical components of the buy-back equation: 1) the cost of what you gave up to implement the buy-back, and 2) the prospective return from the buy-back. To understand what you give up when Firm A implements the buy-back, you need to analyze how the buy-back is funded. There are essentially 4 sources of funding: 1) existing cash, 2) ongoing cash flow, 3) debt financing, and 4) equity fi- nancing. Each of these funding sources has a cost that must be outweighed by the benefits of the buy-back, before a share repur- chase program can properly be viewed as beneficial. We address the cost associated with each of these sources below. A company that uses existing cash to buy back shares incurs an opportunity cost, since it is foregoing the return that the cash would otherwise be earning. The prospective return from buying back shares has to exceed whatever the cash is earning; otherwise, the buy-back would destroy, rather than enhance, value for shareholders. Using ongoing cash flow to fund buy-backs also potentially incurs opportunity costs, since such cash flow can be allo- cated to other possibly value-enhancing alternative uses, including: 1) retiring high-cost debt, 2) acquiring other promising busi- nesses or assets, and/or 3) paying or increasing dividends. By diverting cash flow to buy back its own shares rather than allocat- ing it to these alternative uses, the opportunity cost of foregoing these alternatives must be compared to the prospective return from the share repurchase program. Using debt financing to fund stock buy-backs only makes sense if the actual (as opposed to opportunity) cost of the debt is lower than the prospective return from the buy-back. If the cost is indeed lower, it may make sense to leverage up the buy-back, especially for dividend-paying companies, as the cost of the debt is tax-deductible, while the payment of dividends is not. With fewer shares outstanding after the buy-back, the company will pay lower total dividends. By financing the buy-back via an acceptable Inside This Issue: level of debt, Firm A would essentially be using pre-tax dollars (since the financing costs are tax-deductible) to save the payment of after-tax dollars • Share Repurchase Programs p.1 (since dividend payments are not deductible, and fewer shares means • Equity Options: Volatility as Your Friend p.2 lower total dividends to pay out). Fall 2006 PDV OBSERVATIONS PAGE 2 Finally, it does not make sense to fund stock buy-backs using equity financing. Equity financing is basically selling company shares for cash, the opposite of a share buy-back program. However, this situation is more common than you might think, because of employee stock options. In a typical situation, companies issue stock options that are exercised from time to time by employees. When options are exercised, companies must issue additional shares (typically out of the Treasury account) to employees, who in return pay the company amounts equal to the option strike price multiplied by the number of options exer- cised. Essentially, the company sells its shares at a discount to its option-exercising employees (the per-share discount being the difference between the lower option strike price and the higher market price). To offset the increased number of shares issued to settle option exercise and avoid reported earnings dilution, the com- pany in the illustration above would then embark on a stock repurchase program, buying back the very shares issued to its em- ployees. This type of buy-back does not enhance value for shareholders. Instead of creating value, companies doing this have in fact simply frozen the cost of its employee stock option program to $X, where $X= {number of shares repurchased * average repurchase price per share} minus {total option exercise proceeds received + option-related tax benefits}. The prospective return from the buy-back also needs to be balanced against its funding costs. The prospective return depends on the degree of undervaluation of the company, which in turn is a function of the current market price of the stock in relation to its future business prospects and associated business value. In sum, stock repurchase programs are not categorically good or bad; they do not per se suggest positive investment at- tributes. Stock repurchase programs that are beneficial and possess positive investment attributes have the following characteris- tics: 1) they repurchase shares at discount prices that undervalue the company’s future business prospects, 2) their prospective return exceeds the cost of the funding for the buy-back, and 3) they create more value than allocation of cash to alternative uses. If you are looking for a company that is buying back its shares as a reason to invest, make sure it is the type of stock repurchase program that fits the above value-enhancing criteria. Equity Options: Volatility as Your Friend By Louisa Ho Portfolio Analyst Many investors identify high price volatility with high risk and are therefore uncomfortable investing in highly volatile investments, such as most equities. However, high volatility does not necessarily imply high risk, provided your investment time horizon is sufficiently long. In fact, you can profit from high volatility under the right circumstances. This article discusses how you can use two related equity option strategies, the long straddle and long strangle, for accomplishing this. Before discussing the strategies, let’s first get familiar with the fundamental traits of equity options. The Basics An equity option is a contract that gives its owner the right to buy (a call option) or sell (a put option) the underlying stock, usually in the amount of 100 shares, at a specified price (strike price) before the option expires (expiration date). The op- tion becomes worthless and ceases to exist following its expiration. An equity call option or call goes up in value when the underlying stock increases; an equity put option or put increases in value when the underlying stock goes down. Straddles and strangles combine both puts and calls in an attempt to profit from price volatility without having to depend on the direction of the underlying stock movement. These strategies offer profit poten- tial whenever you anticipate a price-moving event, one way or the other, without knowing which way the movement might be. Examples of such events include imminent court decisions for major litigation or regulatory decisions on an important new drug etc. The common theme is that the event has to be significant enough that it is likely to cause a large movement in the stock. A call is in-the-money (ITM) when its strike price is below the current market price of the underlying stock, as the op- tion owner has the right to buy the stock at a lower price than what he would have to pay in the open market. Similarly, a put is Fall 2006 PDV OBSERVATIONS PAGE 3 ITM when its strike price is above the current market price of the underlying stock, as the option owner has the right to sell the stock at a higher price than what he could receive from the open market. The opposite of ITM is out-of-the-money (OTM). And when the strike price is roughly equivalent to the current market price, an option is at-the-money (ATM). An option’s strike price and the underlying stock’s market price are two of the many factors that determine an option’s price (premium). By its nature, the premium of an ITM option is at least its intrinsic value, or the amount by which an option is ITM. This means that the premium for an ITM call should be at least the market price less strike price and the premium for an ITM put should be at least the strike price less market price. The deeper an option is ITM, the higher is its premium, and vice versa. Other major factors influencing an equity option’s premium include the option’s remaining life and the market’s expected volatility of the underlying stock (implied volatility).