To capitalize on its deep discount to NAV, Exor employed a sophisticated reverse Dutch auction for share buybacks. This allowed the company to repurchase €1 billion in shares at the lowest prices offered by shareholders, maximizing value accretion.

Since the 1990s, U.S. companies have returned more capital through stock buybacks than dividends. An investor focused solely on dividend yield is missing the larger part of the shareholder return story and cannot accurately assess a company's total capital allocation strategy.

Wix's management conducted a huge buyback at $92/share while also doing a private placement to Durable Capital at a discount. This odd combination suggests the placement was more about securing a friendly long-term shareholder than raising capital, creating confusing optics for investors.

Most buybacks fail, but Applovin's was a huge success. Instead of buying shares on the open market, they identified large, known sellers on their private cap table who needed liquidity. They used their capital to directly absorb this selling pressure, stabilizing the stock for new, long-term investors.

The company's Total Return Swaps (TRS) are not just a speculative bet but a strategic tool. They function as a deferred buyback, allowing Fairfax to lock in a price while using the capital elsewhere until they formally close the swap and take delivery of the shares.

Companies termed "share cannibals" aggressively repurchase their own shares, especially when undervalued. This capital allocation strategy is often superior to dividends because it transfers value from sellers to long-term shareholders and acts as a high-return, low-risk investment in the company's own business.

Despite executing a $2 billion buyback and a massive stock price drop, Wix's founder-CEO and management team have not personally purchased shares. This absence of personal "skin in the game" is a major red flag that undermines their public statements about the stock's cheapness.

Profitable, self-funded public companies that consistently use surplus cash for share repurchases are effectively executing a slow-motion management buyout. This process systematically increases the ownership percentage for the remaining long-term shareholders who, alongside management, will eventually "own the whole company."

Fairfax executed a brilliant capital allocation move by selling a 10% stake in its subsidiary, Odyssey, to pension funds for 1.7 times its book value. They then used the billion-dollar proceeds to buy back their own undervalued parent company stock, which was trading at a discount of 0.9x book value.