An “exceptional contribution” in response to massive share buybacks. During his television interview, Emmanuel Macron said he wanted to impose an “exceptional tax” on large companies that take advantage of record profits to buy back their own shares on the stock market. A practice that is on the rise in the CAC40, where share buybacks have reached record levels in recent years.
Last year almost 24,000 million euros in shares were repurchased, after 22,400 million in 2021. It was half in 2018 (10,900 million) and in 2019 (10,700 million). In 2022, TotalEnergies is the champion with more than 6,000 million euros in share buybacks. In the first quarter of this year alone, the company plans to shell out 1.8 billion euros, as much as it paid for super-profits tax in Europe.
Other groups have already announced big share buyback programs for this year. BNP Paribas currently leads with €5 billion, followed by LVMH and Stellantis with around €1.5 billion each. At Carrefour, it is 800 million euros. According to a count by BFM Business, French companies project at least 12.9 billion euros in share buybacks in 2022.
1000 trillion dollars in the United States
But the levels are on a completely different scale in the United States, where there is more than 1000 billion dollars (915 million euros) of share buybacks in 2022. A record held in particular by Apple with 90 billion dollars. For ten years, it has been even 550 billion dollars for Apple, more than any other American company. A way for the group to support its listing on the stock market.
As for other share repurchases planned for 2023, Chevron announced a plan for $75 billion in share repurchases, $40 billion for Meta. Given these figures, the US Congress introduced a 1% tax on the value of repurchased shares. This new tax has been in force since January 1 but, given Wall Street’s addiction to these programs, Joe Biden wants to quadruple it.
Source: BFM TV
