Public Company Share Repurchase-Cannibals

[Rainier]

6 hours ago, moatrep said:

PVH is buying like crazy and the balance sheet doesn't look that bad. Just no growth, but owners earning yield about 13%. I mean for a small Peter Lynch position, as I don't have any insight. One insider bought at this price, which gives more confidence.

There are several of these retail companies that are aggressively buying back shares. PVH, BBWI, ANF, COLM, GIII to name a few. I’ve had a basket of the names for about 6 months now. I need to look at PVH again. I did look at them initially when I was researching  this stuff but can’t remember why that one didn’t make the cut. But the price has fallen so it might make more sense now.

 

If there are others in this vein (strong FCF and commitment to

buybacks), I’d love to hear suggestions.

Edited March 13 by Rainier

[Spekulatius]

$CRBG (AIG spinoff) hs been eating itself at a raid clip since 2022

 

[FCharlie]

On 3/12/2026 at 10:03 PM, Spekulatius said:

$CRBG (AIG spinoff) hs been eating itself at a raid clip since 2022

 

Will Corebridge keep buying once AIG stops selling? A lot of their buys have been timed with AIG's sales. I've never looked at Corebridge but AIG itself is buying back stock much faster than Corebridge has. Is there a reason to prefer this over AIG?

[tnathan]

On 3/10/2026 at 5:00 PM, Saluki said:

Medical Facilities Corp, which I did a post on but don't own, would certainly qualify since it has bought back about 40% of their shares the past few years and has authorization for 10% this year. 

This is also a very cheap stock ... any idea why?

[Sweet]

On 3/13/2026 at 2:03 AM, Spekulatius said:

$CRBG (AIG spinoff) hs been eating itself at a raid clip since 2022

 

This thing is trading at 5-6x FCF.  Never heard of this company, fear AIG have gathered up a load of shitty assets / liabilities and spun it out.  Must look further.

[FCharlie]

54 minutes ago, Sweet said:

This thing is trading at 5-6x FCF.  Never heard of this company, fear AIG have gathered up a load of shitty assets / liabilities and spun it out.  Must look further.

It's not strange for companies in this industry to trade at extremely low valuations. LNC is another, trades at 4X earnings. 

[Saluki]

6 hours ago, tnathan said:

This is also a very cheap stock ... any idea why?

 

My guess is that it was cheap for the reason that PETS is cheap. PETS can't negotiate prices with drug companies as effectively as much larger competitors. For Medicare (medicaid?), every hospital gets the same price, but a chain of 100 hospitals has better bargaining power over prices for procedures with Blue Cross than a company with 6 (and shrinking) hospitals. 

 

Also, once you are done buying back shares, what other levers can you pull? It's hard to shrink your way to greatness. 

[Spekulatius]

6 hours ago, Sweet said:

This thing is trading at 5-6x FCF.  Never heard of this company, fear AIG have gathered up a load of shitty assets / liabilities and spun it out.  Must look further.

AIG has spun off their long tail life insurance and pension business into CRBG similar to what Prudential did with JXN. Then they kept selling down their share and used the proceeds to buy back their own stocks. That’s how AIG was able to purchase back so much of their own stocks, it wasn’t possible with their earnings alone.

 

I agree that AIG is also worth a look as it trades around book value. They do have a history of under reserving , so that’s something to keep in mind when looking at their valuation metrics.

Edited March 15 by Spekulatius

[tnathan]

17 hours ago, Saluki said:

 

My guess is that it was cheap for the reason that PETS is cheap. PETS can't negotiate prices with drug companies as effectively as much larger competitors. For Medicare (medicaid?), every hospital gets the same price, but a chain of 100 hospitals has better bargaining power over prices for procedures with Blue Cross than a company with 6 (and shrinking) hospitals. 

 

Also, once you are done buying back shares, what other levers can you pull? It's hard to shrink your way to greatness. 

I think anytime you're buying back enough shares at ~5x fcf and the fcf is relatively stable / resilient the outcome should be pretty good right?. Hard to get less than 10% returns, should likely expect closer to 15%

[Intelligent_Investor]

AIG went bust during the Financial Crisis, I wouldn't trust their risk management to not blow themselves up again