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French companies benefiting from state aid can't buy back shares

uk.reuters.com

111–120 of 220 posts

Re: French companies benefiting from state aid can't buy back shares

#111
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay more taxes on dividends, you still pay taxes on Capital gains, just less.

In the US yes, other places, that's not the case

Lol what idiots would downvote this... For exampe, in the Netherlands there are no capital gains tax.

I think I'll delete my YC account, as it became a shit show

Re: French companies benefiting from state aid can't buy back shares

#113
post #40

Why aren't shareholders on the hook for bailing out their own companies? They have the financial incentive to protect their own investments. Why is bailing out a compay different from "investing" in it? What is an investment besides a non-emergency bailout? Edit: Why don't companies raise money by issuing more stock? Isn't that what the stock matket is for?

Because this is NOT a bailout. A bailout implies that those who receive it are potentially at fault, like when someone is bailed out of jail. Banks were bailed out in 2008 because they acted recklessly but had to be saved to limit the damage to the rest of the economy.

Here businesses that may otherwise be perfectly sane are temporarily prevented (or limited) by the state from operating for the public good.

It's analogous to the state paying for the property they seize under eminent domain.

Re: French companies benefiting from state aid can't buy back shares

#114
post #40

Why aren't shareholders on the hook for bailing out their own companies? They have the financial incentive to protect their own investments. Why is bailing out a compay different from "investing" in it? What is an investment besides a non-emergency bailout? Edit: Why don't companies raise money by issuing more stock? Isn't that what the stock matket is for?

Shareholders are already on the hook.

The way shares work is a way for a publicly traded company to obtain a loan. It does this by issuing shares which can be bought by investors. Shareholders are not liable except for their initial investment.

After selling shares, these can be traded i.e. on NASDAQ, but any price on the shares there only reflects the public perception of value of any given company. It's a high risk lottery.

This is also the reason that companies pay out large dividends to shareholders. They're obligated by law to payout dividends. Think of it as interest on a loan.

Re: French companies benefiting from state aid can't buy back shares

#115
post #40

Why aren't shareholders on the hook for bailing out their own companies? They have the financial incentive to protect their own investments. Why is bailing out a compay different from "investing" in it? What is an investment besides a non-emergency bailout? Edit: Why don't companies raise money by issuing more stock? Isn't that what the stock matket is for?

The calculation seems to be that it would cost more to the state to have these companies fail or fire most of their employees, have them apply for unemployment, and wait for new companies to emerge/rehire when the tide comes back.

By "cost more" I mean not just in sheer money, but also counting the overall impact on the population.

Re: French companies benefiting from state aid can't buy back shares

#116
post #49

.. or dividends as the article says. Devil is in the details. Maybe French government has good conditions for the aid, but the article is not giving details. Aid should be exchangeable debt for public companies. No dividends and buybacks. No executive bonuses or options until the debt is paid full. After (5-7) years the remaining debt is exchanged into company stocks in a rate that leaves the government in the neutra…

this.

I am often left surprised by how many people are always and only read the headlines. Even those who do read the headlines and the article, don't really question it.

Re: French companies benefiting from state aid can't buy back shares

#117
post #40

Why aren't shareholders on the hook for bailing out their own companies? They have the financial incentive to protect their own investments. Why is bailing out a compay different from "investing" in it? What is an investment besides a non-emergency bailout? Edit: Why don't companies raise money by issuing more stock? Isn't that what the stock matket is for?

Shareholders are already on the hook. The way shares work is a way for a publicly traded company to obtain a loan. It does this by issuing shares which can be bought by investors. Shareholders are not liable except for their initial investment. After selling shares, these can be traded i.e. on NASDAQ, but any price on the shares there only reflects the public perception of value of any given company. It's a high risk…

[deleted]

Re: French companies benefiting from state aid can't buy back shares

#118
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investing is privatizing the risks and the benefits. Bailing out is privatizing the benefits but mutualizing the risks. It's taking what favors you from both capitalism and socialism, call that a free market, and pretend it's for the common good. You always win. People says communism didn't work looking at Russia and China. But the ruling class will abuse any system to the point it doesn't look like the original idea…

Communism and capitalism do share a weakness: corruption of those with power. One difference between them is that a dangerous concentration of power is inherent to communism. It's intentional. In capitalism, it's an unintended consequence that can be mitigated by regulations (anti-trust laws, subsidies to startups, etc.)

What exactly is the historical basis that it's unintended? The origins of capitalism are hardly a display of democratic prowess.

Re: French companies benefiting from state aid can't buy back shares

#119
post #46
post #40

Why aren't shareholders on the hook for bailing out their own companies? They have the financial incentive to protect their own investments. Why is bailing out a compay different from "investing" in it? What is an investment besides a non-emergency bailout? Edit: Why don't companies raise money by issuing more stock? Isn't that what the stock matket is for?

> Why is bailing out a compay different from "investing" in it? What is an investment besides a non-emergency bailout? Bailing a company out is just a euphemism for making a very high risk investment that the market is unwilling to do. Putting aside whether that is the correct thing to do or not, the option would likely (in a recession) be mass unemployment, so there's an incentive from the state, that likely wishes…

> That said, it makes sense that if you pull the emergency lever and request a state bailout, you should pay future dividends back to the state for at least a decent amount of time since they basically gave you a loan that no-one else would.

This sounds like it should be a similar mechanism as startups' liquidation preference schemes. Investors that provided capital when others wouldn't are in a position to request that they get paid back in priority. For startups, it's (usually) if it fails. For mature companies, it could be a tweaked form like dividend priority or payback priority. Basically a mechanism to balance out the risk.

Re: French companies benefiting from state aid can't buy back shares

#120
If the government keeps bailing out large corporations, can this eventually form a pattern in which major corporations and industries may collectively and artificially engineer a crash or downturn event to game the system?

Once any pattern is formed and determined, there are always some people who will attempt to exploit it, and those people are often the ones who would eventually ruin all the good things for everybody else.

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