Abstract

Stock repurchase, as a corporate finance tool and a substitute for cash dividends, plays an important role in distributing excess cash. Following a prohibited period due to its potentially negative outcomes for shareholders and creditors, stock repurchase has recently been regulated within the company law systems of many countries pursuant to its increasing popularity in satisfying special financing requirements of companies. That the regulatory improvements have removed the uncertainty inherent in such transactions has increased the volume of, especially, the open market stock repurchases. Turkish legislation, i.e. Commercial Code and Capital Markets Law, has latterly been updated in accordance with EU acquis communautaire in order to allow stock repurchase for listed firms. We analyse movements in stock prices after stock repurchase transactions in order to make inferences about why stock repurchase is used and what its impacts/signals are in Turkish market at their infancy stage. Having followed a standard event study methodology, the results reveal that investor reaction to stock repurchase transactions is generally positive in the short-term. These results support the notion of a signaling hypothesis as a motivator behind stock repurchase decisions.

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