Finding $700 million of value-creating new investment opportunities every year in most sectors of the economy is no simple task. Furthermore, at a 20 percent ROIC, the company would need to grow its revenues by 20 percent per year to absorb all of its cash flow. The company has no choice but to return a substantial amount of cash to shareholders. A number of leading companies have adopted the sensible approach of regularly returning all cash they don't need, and using regular share repurchases to pay out the difference between the total payout and dividends. Although these companies don't have
...more

