Tax reform?
The biggest tax rewrite in three decades was sold by Republican backers as a way to help workers, but much more money will go to dividends and buybacks.
NEW YORK — It’s just what the GOP said we’d hear from a CEO after being handed a big tax break.
But when Charles Scharf announced plans last month to spend his company’s tax savings on higher wages and technology, investors began selling.
The Bank of New York Mellon CEO said he had a responsibility to “share the benefit” with workers and build the “company of the future.” But investors want to share in the tax bounty as well — through higher dividends and buybacks. By the end of the day, the bank’s stock was down 4.4 percent.
The biggest tax rewrite in three decades was sold by its Republican backers as a way to help American workers, and there have been plenty of announcements about bonuses and plans to buy equipment and make other capital investments to improve productivity and raise wages. But much more money has been earmarked for dividends and buybacks.
Retailer Lowe’s has authorized $7.1 billion in buybacks, triple the level planned before the tax overhaul. Radio giant Sirius XM has increased its program by a fifth to $12 billion. And Wednesday Cisco announced the biggest number of all — a $25 billion increase to its repurchase program.
Buybacks, in which companies purchase their own shares and retire them, are popular with investors because fewer shares outstanding lifts earnings per share, the most watched barometer of corporate success.
A recent survey by Morgan Stanley showed Wall Street stock analysts expect companies to allocate 43 percent of tax savings to dividends and buybacks. Capital spending and workers will get 17 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
The flood of buybacks could help drive stocks higher during a touchy moment in the market. They’ve played that role before in the nine-year bull market, as companies step in to lift share prices at crucial moments when traditional buyers like insurers and individual investors turned to sellers.
But critics note that stocks now are more expensive relative to longterm earnings than at any time since the dot-com boom and that the money might be wasted if stocks drop anyway. They also argue that money used for buybacks — trillions of dollars in recent years — is often better spent on improving operations and making workers more productive, which can lead to “real” wage increases that do more than just keep up with inflation.
“What are you getting from buying back stock? It doesn’t generate any growth, any real activity,” said James Abate, chief investment officer of Centre Asset Management.
To be sure, the tax overhaul isn’t all about buybacks and may end up helping workers, too. The conservative Americans for Tax Reform has been touting its tally of 3 million workers promised bonuses and other compensation gains so far, a number cited by President Donald Trump in his State of the Union address. That’s welcome news given the slow growth in wages in recent years.