StockDecksShare buybacks and dilution
Whether a company has been buying back its own shares or issuing new ones.
How it’s calculated
Cash raised from issuing new shares minus cash spent buying shares back, over the last financial year, compared with the company’s total assets.
How to read it
Buying back shares means each remaining share represents a slightly larger slice of the company. Issuing new shares (dilution) does the opposite — existing holders own a smaller slice — and is common at young or loss-making companies that need to raise money.
Buybacks are not automatically good: a company can buy back shares at a high price, or borrow to do it.
How StockDecks scores it
Issuing new shares worth 1% of assets scores about −25, and heavy dilution (around 8% of assets or more) scores about −90 or lower. Buybacks earn credit too, but capped at +70, so spending cash on buybacks can never on its own earn a perfect score. Dilution is penalised more than buybacks are rewarded.
It is one of the measures behind the Financial Health rating. Every measure, benchmark and weighting is set out on the methodology page.