As before, the cash-outs are helping to drive debt — corporate debt — to record levels. Welcome to the Buyback Economy. As a result of a $100 billion share buyback announced last month, Apple will have returned $210 billion to shareholders since 2012. “A new cycle of distressed corporate credit looks to be just around the corner,” Arbess warned in February in an article published in Fortune. What concerns these regulators is not simply the growth of the corporate debt market but also the change in its structure and how it will perform during a sell-off.

Source: Washington Post June 08, 2018 16:33 UTC