Boeing wants $50 billion? Fine, here's $50 bil., structured as senior bank debt, 1st liens on everything and senior to everything.
And warrants. Maybe 10 years for 50.1% of the equity.
Or somesuch.
These big companies have been playing the tax scam of buybacks since the rules were changed in '82 But I actually don't care all that much about Rule 10b-18. It's the tax avoidance that pushes the behavior and would be the most efficient place to effect change.*
But back to France. From Reuters:
The French government is prepared to use all means to support big companies suffering in financial market turmoil, including nationalization if necessary, the finance minister said on Tuesday.
Bruno Le Maire’s remarks are the strongest indication yet that Paris is ready to pull out all the stops to steady the country’s biggest companies amid the turbulence unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic.*See October 2019's:
“I won’t hesitate to use all means available to protect big French companies,” he said on a conference call with journalists.
“That can be done by recapitalization, that can be done by taking a stake, I can even use the term nationalization if necessary,” Le Maire added, without saying which companies could be treated as a priority....MORE
"Share Buybacks and the Contradictions of 'Shareholder Capitalism'”
In the U.S. stock buybacks are just a straight-up tax dodge with the added attraction of boosting shares-based management compensation. If interested see "The Real Reason Stock Buybacks Are a Problem"
The smart kids, members of Phi Scamma Jamma, are still pitching a differential between tax on earned income and tax on capital gains even though the efficacy of capital gains tax breaks in performing their original purposes, investment and job creation, has been declining since the 1970's and is now just an excuse for a loophole. See "TAXES, CAPITAL AND JOBS" for an exceptionally lucid discussion, again, if interested.
And today's headliner, from American Affairs Journal:...MORE
