Henry Singleton viewed aggressive share repurchases as a superior investment to acquisitions or internal projects when Teledyne's stock was cheap. He controversially bought back 90% of the company's shares, generating a 42% compound annual return on the tenders.

D-NOW's leadership bought back $50 million in stock precisely when the market was punishing them for the messy MRC integration. This counter-cyclical move, executed while grappling with major operational problems, signaled deep confidence in their ability to resolve the issues and in the company's underlying value.

When Home Depot's culture began to erode due to a mindset that prioritized cost over people, the board's solution wasn't a new initiative, but a leadership change. Ken Langone credits the new CEO, Frank Blake, as a "founder" for his role in restoring the company's core cultural values.

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.

With the DIY consumer market stalled due to the housing gridlock, Home Depot is shifting its focus to professional contractors and builders. The company is actively acquiring wholesale distributors to cater to this B2B segment, which now accounts for half of its revenue, as a strategy to maintain growth.

During a market crash, Henry Singleton stopped acquiring companies and did the opposite: he used cash to buy back 90% of Teledyne's stock. While Wall Street saw this as failure, it was a rational trade—repurchasing his own company's earnings at a low multiple—which caused earnings per share to explode.

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.

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.

To turn Home Depot around in 2007, CEO Frank Blake made the counterintuitive decision to completely stop new store expansion for nearly eleven years. This forced the company to focus entirely on improving the productivity of its existing 2,300 stores, which doubled sales per store and reignited profitable growth without capital-intensive expansion.