A treasury stock or reacquired stock is stock which is bought back by the issuing company, reducing the amount of outstanding stock on the open market ("open market" including insiders' holdings).
Stock repurchases are often used as a tax-efficient method to put cash into shareholders' hands, rather than paying dividends. Sometimes, companies do this when they feel that their stock is undervalued on the open market. Other times, companies do this to provide a "bonus" to incentive compensation plans for employees. Rather than receive cash, recipients receive an asset that might appreciate in value faster than cash saved in a bank account. Another motive for stock repurchase is to protect the company against a takeover threat.
The United Kingdom equivalent of treasury stock as used in the United States is treasury share. Treasury stocks in the UK refers to government bonds or gilts.
Read more about Treasury Stock: Limitations of Treasury Stock, Accounting For Treasury Stock, United States Regulations, United Kingdom Regulations
Famous quotes containing the words treasury and/or stock:
“I was duped ... by the Secretary of the treasury [Alexander Hamilton], and made a fool for forwarding his schemes, not then sufficiently understood by me; and of all the errors of my political life, this has occasioned the deepest regret.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Death and life were not
Till man made up the whole,
Made lock, stock and barrel
Out of his bitter soul,”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)