Petro Rio S.A. ADR fka HRPTY

[viseu]

Share buybacks by companies is only worthwhile when the company is cash rich, have consistent and strong cash flow and is undervalued. This is not a common approach for truly undervalued and good (underlin good) companies as it is indicative of a good management that is thinking on the long term. AIG is one of the good examples.
What you see in the real world is that companies do share repurchases when there is no other way to pump the stock up, Several management have their bonus indexed on the stock performance, so it is in their best and selfish interest to pump it up. So they end up doing share purchases when the stock is overvalued (as there is no buyer left and the stock cannot go higher in normal market conditions) which end ups a pretty poor deal for the existing shareholders as the company is buying expensive shares.

HRT and share buyback? That would be silly. The argument of having a lot of cash works until it runs out with their on-going activities.