The determinants of share repurchases in Europe

In this paper, we assess which firm-characteristics are associated with a firm's decision to announce a share repurchase programme in a cross-country framework. In the models, we incorporate firm-specific financial characteristics and measures of share price performance. We find that size, cash dividends, and ownership concentration consistently have a significant impact on share repurchase announcements in all three countries under study. However, the share price performance does not explain the decision to announce a share repurchase. The robustness of the proposed models is investigated across different dimensions of sample-matching methods and with a boot-strap technique. Finally, we construct a number of models with a robust predictive ability of a firm's likelihood to announce a share repurchase. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.