{"id":23547,"date":"2026-04-27T21:12:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/23547\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T21:12:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:12:37","slug":"london-named-share-buyback-capital-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/23547\/","title":{"rendered":"London named share buyback capital of the world\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\tMonday 27 April 2026 2:50 pm
\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMonday 27 April 2026 2:51 pm\n\t<\/p>\n

\"GettyImages\t\tLondon has topped the leader board for share buybacks \t<\/p>\n

The UK has jumped up the leader board to be named the share buyback capital of the world, as companies looked to capitalise on low valuations and improved investor sentiment.<\/p>\n

Nearly 60 per cent of UK large cap companies bought their stock back in bulk in the last 12 months, according to the latest research from wealth manager Schroders, compared to just 45 per cent in the US.<\/p>\n

Listed companies often buy back their shares in order to return excess cash to shareholders and boost financial metrics such as earnings per share.<\/p>\n

Schroders credited the shift <\/a>to a range of catalysts, primarily the UK stock market falling to cheap valuations compared to global competitors.<\/p>\n

Valuations<\/p>\n

The FTSE 100 is trading at 13.1 times the next 12 months\u2019 forecast earnings, according to the latest findings from AJ Bell, a 37 per cent discount to the S&P 500\u2019s 20.8 times rating, emphasising the valuation gap and the UK\u2019s attractiveness.<\/p>\n

Duncan Lamont, head of strategic research at Schroders, said: \u201cSince 2016\u2026the UK stock market has fallen to quite a cheap valuation compared with overseas market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you started to see around that point in time was that there was a lot of demand coming in from UK equities \u2013 not yet from investors but from other sources. You had directors buying back their shares.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lamont noted that the wave<\/a> of share buybacks also sends a \u201cclear signal\u201d to the wider market that they \u201csee value in it\u201d, potentially triggering a chain reaction of domestic investor interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It comes after a \u201creal frustration\u201d of domestic investors taking minimal interest in UK stocks in favour of the more \u201cglamorous\u201d US tech stocks, leaving UK companies to fill the void, but Lamont predicts this may soon come to an end.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing right now I really hope that it spurs people just to think again about the UK stock market, because their earnings are doing well, their valuations are still cheap in a global context.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got an awful lot to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n

\t\t\tREPLY S.p.A.: Shareholders\u2019 Meeting Approves the 2025 Financial Statements<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\"chartJapan and Europe<\/p>\n

While Japan and Europe<\/a> have also seen an uptick in share buybacks, the reason for Japan differs from the UK, as the nation is shifting its focus to corporate governance.<\/p>\n

Historically, Japanese companies have hoarded cash and boasted conservative balance sheets, focusing on stability and risk aversion, with little pressure for shareholders to provide returns.<\/p>\n

Following the appointment of Sanae Takaichi as prime minister in October 2025, companies have begun utilising capital after spotting that it ultimately failed to support investors.<\/p>\n

Lamont said: \u201cIt\u2019s a cash drag, it\u2019s not doing anything useful for investors\u2026if you\u2019ve not good use for that cash and investments, it\u2019s much better if you return it to your investors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a structural change that could lead to a long term benefit to Japanese equities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Europe\u2019s rise has been credited to similar reasons to the UK, using buybacks as a signalling tool to the market that shares are undervalued.<\/p>\n

US buyback slowdown<\/p>\n

In contrast to the UK, the US has pivoted away from share buybacks, after a pre-covid surge, as large companies turned their cash towards investing in infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Primarily, this switch in handling capital has occurred in the tech sector, including Magnificent seven stocks such as Meta and Apple, which are locked into the \u201cAI arms race\u201d, causing them to redirect capital towards infrastructure such as data centres.<\/p>\n

Lamont said: \u201cThe balance is shifting at some of these big American companies now to say, well actually we need that money to reinvest.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t want it to be a situation where all money was just getting returned to shareholders, because that could almost be seen as a negative signal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n

\t\t\tRolls-Royce boss \u2018Turbo Tufan\u2019 gets backing for \u00a318m pay packet<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\tSimilarly tagged content: <\/p>\n

\t\t\tSections\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tCategories\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPeople & Organisations\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tRelated Topics\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monday 27 April 2026 2:50 pm \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0 Monday 27 April 2026 2:51 pm London has topped the leader…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[633,10590,252,320,5757,10589,4356,411,27,9581,160,18,1828,431,1261,7369,10591,1822],"class_list":{"0":"post-23547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-employment-and-wages","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-ftse-100","12":"tag-ftse-250","13":"tag-ftse-350","14":"tag-investing","15":"tag-japan","16":"tag-london","17":"tag-london-stock-exchange-group","18":"tag-markets","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-stock-market","21":"tag-uk-economy","22":"tag-uk-government","23":"tag-uk-jobs","24":"tag-uk-oil-and-gas-investments","25":"tag-uk-stocks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116478734687252896","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}