I'm not sure what you're talking about, open market and private transactions, but to the best of my knowledge, this is how every Co. does it. Google and on down the line. The SEC give them the green light, then they make a bid to the underwriter (or other), where they agree on a price, .001, .002, who knows? Certainly less than the going market price. I'm assuming UBRG does the buyback of course. Anyway, after they pay the fee, the shares are periodically from time to time retired reducing the supply, and consequently increasing the value. But it does more than this, it also takes fewer purchases to increase value. In other words, when it took 10 mil. to make a difference, it would take maybe 8 mil. which can prove to be quite significant over a rather short period of time. Simply put, the complete opposite of a float. The last time, it did not reduce the supply that much, and in addition to that it was vastly shorted, and the amount they bought back, was 10 time more shorted or sold back into the pool of shares replenishing the supply making the value go right back where ir came from. It was the short sellers that caused the redundentcy in the buy back.