Ball board OKs $4B stock buyback

WESTMINSTER — The board of directors at can manufacturing giant Ball Corp. (NYSE: BALL) has approved the repurchase of as much as $4 billion of company stock, while issuing stockholders a cash dividend of 20 cents per share.

“Today’s increased share repurchase authorization will enable our ongoing multi-year return of capital to shareholders,” said Howard Yu, executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Stock buybacks, which have become increasingly popular since the Great Recession 15 or so years ago, are often criticized for being short-sighted moves aimed at placating major shareholders at the expense of investments in the business.

“When companies do these buybacks, they deprive themselves of the liquidity that might help them cope when sales and profits decline in an economic downturn,” a trio of economics professors wrote in a Harvard Business Review article headlined “Why Stock Buybacks Are Dangerous for the Economy.”

Buybacks “made as open-market repurchases make no contribution to the productive capabilities of the firm. Indeed, these distributions to shareholders, which generally come on top of dividends, disrupt the growth dynamic that links the productivity and pay of the labor force,” the HBR piece said. “The results are increased income inequity, employment instability, and anemic productivity.”

Leaders at Ball, which has seen its stock price increase by about 3% since the beginning of 2025, began emphasizing buybacks in conjunction with the company’s $5.6 billion sale of its Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. division to British aerospace and defense company BAE Systems PLC last February.

“Following the successful sale of the aerospace business in mid-February, we have executed on our plans to immediately deleverage, initiate a large multi-year share repurchase program and position the company to enable our purpose of advancing the greater use of sustainable aluminum packaging,” Ball CEO Daniel Fisher said in a statement last spring. “We continue to complement our purpose by driving innovation and sustainability on a global scale, unlocking additional manufacturing efficiencies and activating an operating model to enable high-quality, long-term shareholder value creation.”

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