Investor and Issuer Engagement in Uncertain Times – Part 7

IHS Markit's Perception Analytics team engages in in-depth discussions with investors and analysts daily. Given recent market volatility and significant economic uncertainty, IHS Markit will be speaking to investors and analysts on a regular basis to assess how the current situation with COVID-19 is impacting their evaluations of and engagement with corporate issuers. In our seventh installment, we gathered feedback on is whether the recent market uncertainty has impacted investors' and analysts' views on share repurchases. Highlights include:

Many investors view share repurchases negatively in the current environment and caution against using state aid or going to debt markets for funding buybacks.

"I would not take a buyback positively because at this point in time I would prefer companies to be preserving liquidity rather than using it for buybacks. There is a lot of uncertainty as to whether there will be a second wave and another lockdown."

A group of investors have appetite for share repurchases citing that it signals a healthy balance sheet and instills much needed market confidence during periods of uncertainty.

"I continue to see share repurchases as a very useful tool to make the capital utilization of the company much more efficient. It is also a strong signal of confidence to the market, especially in this tumultuous and very uncertain environment."

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IHS Markit's Perception team will continue to gather real-time market feedback as the situation unfolds, so please look out for the next part of this series.

View Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 , Part 5 and Part 6.

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