Is a $2.5 Billion Stock Buyback the Best Valero Can Do?

To the extent that a buyback increase gets results, Valero’s announcement was a success. The shares set a new 52-week high, so investors are happy, and so are company managers who benefit for higher prices for the options and shares that are part of their compensation package.

But here is a slightly different way of looking at it. Valero has 508.62 million shares outstanding, and at $68.27 per share (the new high) the company can repurchase nearly 42.5 million shares with the $2.9 billion. That is about 7.3% of the shares outstanding. And the share price boost? About 2.1%. That is not exactly a lot of bang for the buck.

The company pays an annual dividend of $1.60 per share, which costs it about $814 million a year. Boosting that dividend by 10% would lift the payment to shareholders to $1.76 per share for a total of around $895 million. So, 10% more in shareholders pockets versus 2.1% more. The choice is a no-brainer.

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How is Valero doing otherwise? Pretty well, thank you very much. Now is a very good time to be in the oil refining business. The four top energy stocks among the S&P 500 index over the past four years are refiners: Tesoro, Valero, Marathon and Phillips 66, according to a report from Bloomberg. The biggest reason for these stocks’ performance is lower feedstock (crude oil) prices. Low natural gas prices also help, because refineries use a lot of fuel to cook the good stuff out of the crude.

In the first quarter, Valero beat earnings estimates by 20 cents a share, or nearly 12%. Revenues were nearly 39% above consensus estimates. The biggest reason for the difference was price of crude oil. The company raised its throughput margin per barrel from $10.90 in 2014 to $12.39 year-over-year in the first quarter.

Analysts got a little tougher in their estimates for the second quarter, raising Valero’s earnings per share estimate by 20 cents, from a previous consensus of $1.98 to $2.18. The current consensus estimate for revenues is $19.44 billion, sharply lower than the $34.91 billion in the second quarter of last year, but then oil prices had not yet begun their tumble. In the refining business, it is more about throughput margin and volume than revenues, and margins are likely to stay solid for the second quarter.

Valero reports earnings on July 30 and is expected to post earnings of $2.18 per share on revenues of $19.44 billion. The stock traded at $67.30 in the late morning on Tuesday, in a 52-week range of $42.53 to $68.27. The high was posted earlier in the morning.

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