Companies buy back shares for many reasons e.g.:
- EPS enhancement
- Capital structure modification
- Lack of growth opportunities
However, some of them repurchase shares when confident that their stock is undervalued; often after market overreactions to bad news.
To take advantage of this situation, the fund managers have developed a methodology to identify stocks where the repurchase is driven by an undervaluation. Stocks are picked based on a subset of in-house criteria and held for circa 3 years.
Based on academic studies, this methodology allows investors to earn excess returns adjusted for risk and style of, on average, 15 % per year.