I really hate that this argument keeps popping up. There's plenty of reasons to hate bailouts or airlines or anything else, but who the hell could have predicted the world was going to shut down like this in 2015-2019? We were in one of the biggest bull markets in the history of the United States, business was good, and the companies used some of that money to buy back stock. People make it sound like they were buying back their stock as they were cutting flights and laying off employees. <i>No</i> business is going to hoard 50 billion dollars in an emergency fund for a pandemic that cuts 90% of revenue, that's just absurd.<p>The reality of the situation is that these airlines employ a <i>lot</i> of people and enable even more commerce and economic activity through their operation. You can disagree with a bailout all you want, but if they go under, the economy most likely suffers by a lot more than $50B.
Having worked in the financial industry for close to two decades, and with most of my friends in the same industry, it is remarkable to what lengths regulators went after the 2008 banking crisis.<p>Banks are vital middlemen between many parties and as such, were already heavily regulated back then, but after the massive tax-payer funded bailouts, regulation went into overdrive.<p>For example, Banks are expected to survive short- to mid-term dire periods. However, the 2008 crisis showed that most banks were not in that position. So the regulators went into overdrive and regulated most of the weak spots they had identified, and (IMO) most importantly, really stepped up stress tests. Banks have to demonstrate that they can survive interest rate shocks, market crashes, political crises, etc. for a certain amount of time.<p>And these things get audited <i>extensively</i>. A friend of mine works at a bank under direct ECB oversight, and the sheer amount of data, models, simulations, etc. they need to produce is just staggering.<p>Perhaps it is time to apply some of these methods to other industries that might only survive with a taxpayer bailout. For example, a global pandemic as we are experiencing right now, is not exactly something that was unimaginable before.<p>Airlines could be expected to maintain contingency plans for such scenarios, and required to maintain appropriate financial buffers, with stock buybacks, dividends etc. forbidden as long as those buffers are below the levels required by those scenarios.
Seems like they should sell the government 50 billion dollars of stock at the lower of current prices and 90% of the stock price at the time they did the buy back. They'll have lost money on the buybacks. They'll stay in business though.
I don't necessarily buy this argument - if they would have distributed their earnings via dividend, they would be in the exact same boat (maybe a little bit worse because of the additional tax on dividends). Keeping share prices up is an objective of executive compensation because it benefits the average shareholder.<p>> The reason that I'm harping on share buybacks is that in theory, money for them is supposed to consist of cash that's surplus to the companies' needs. But in the real world, companies frequently borrow money to help fund buybacks. That works great to prop up their stock prices - until one day, there's a problem.<p>I've been told by corporate accountants that this is a huge misunderstanding of how corporate finance works. Companies borrow money all the time for everything, because sitting on cash is the equivalent of slowly losing it.
In good times, people complain about companies like Apple "hoarding cash". Now, people complain about companies redistributing profits to their shareholders--many of which are ordinary people holding shares in their 401(k)'s or otherwise. They really cannot win.
Two thoughts:<p>* there's a structured process for when a company can't pay its bills but is possibly viable in the long run if it can restructure its obligations called Chapter 11. The airline industry has tons of examples of companies that continue operations through chapter 11 proceedings and end up as profitable on the other side. I don't see why that process is suddenly off limits today. It would require equity holders (and likely some liability holders) to take a haircut, but I'd argue investors knew the risks they were taking given the history of the airline industry.<p>* if the $45B was returned to shareholders in the form of dividends, would that be somehow less evil? I keep seeing articles citing share buyback numbers, but the whole point of publicly traded companies is to return capital to shareholders.
I think there is a lot to weigh on many different levels about whether a bailout juxtaposed against buybacks is a good or bad thing. But I’m surprised by how little talk there is of individual investor opportunity. This seems like the bottom of airline stock prices. Here’s a list of their tickers: <a href="https://topforeignstocks.com/stock-lists/the-complete-list-of-airline-stocks-on-the-nyse/" rel="nofollow">https://topforeignstocks.com/stock-lists/the-complete-list-o...</a> … which stocks would you buy? JetBlue, American & United seem like bargains & no one can guarantee returns financially but lots of people will fly again.
It's obvious that buy-backs are basically a hack for struggling companies to sacrifice long-time gains for short-term posturing. So what would a fair regulation around stock buy backs look like?<p>We could make it illegal, but that seems like it would favor people who want to do corporate takeovers. Also, I've seen legitimate uses of stock buybacks, such as buying it back to give it as a grant to new employees.<p>We could limit the amount bough or spent, or require that some percentage of stock's bought back be re-allocated to employees as grants or options.<p>I'm not an economic person though, just spit-balling.
Almost all major airlines in the world are receiving government bailouts: France, Germany, UK, Japan, Sweden, HongKong, UAE, Singapore. The airline industry is a notoriously cut-throat industry with lots of protectionism from nations, one can't just expect US airlines to sit on $50B cash and not put it to work.
Video here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-DNaDlSqBQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-DNaDlSqBQ</a>
So what? The times were right and the opted for a stock buyback with excess cash.<p>I don't own airlines stocks, but when a company where I am a shareholders does a stock-buyback with excess cash I am v=so very happy.<p>I am OK with banning stock buyback during the period between bailout and full repayment of the loan, but what happened before of after the loan should not be part of the argument for the bailout.<p>There are no bad politicians, only bad voter.
is there an explanation for stock buybacks that isn't ' evil stockholders'?<p>edit: this was an actual question not a rhetorical one. curious why the downvotes?
Banks have legally mandated reserve requirements. Is it time for companies in certain FRB (Frequently Requiring Bailouts) industries to also have some level of required cash reserves? What would be some arguments against, apart from ye olde “too much government regulation”?