Share Issues vs. Share Repurchases

Almost all firms repurchase shares through open-market repurchase programs. In contrast, issue methods are more diverse; at-the-market offerings, analogous to open-market repurchases, and seasoned equity offerings, analogous to rarely used tender-offer repurchases, are both used by significant fractions of firms. Furthermore, average seasoned equity offerings are larger than at-the-market offerings. We show that this asymmetry in the diversity of transaction methods in issuances and repurchases and the size-method relation in issuances are natural consequences of the single informational friction of a firm having superior information to investors. Moreover, although this friction always leads firms to issue inefficiently little, it leads firms to repurchase too little if they maximize long-term shareholder value but too much if the primary goal is to boost short-term share prices.

This paper was accepted by Bo Becker, finance.

Funding: Y. Yuan acknowledges support from the Paul Woolley Centre, the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Projects 72342020 and 72495152], and University College London. H. Zhong acknowledges support from the Economic and Social Research Council [New Investigator Grant ES/T003758/1].

Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2025.03301.