> Don't stock buybacks basically transfer wealth from the company to the shareholders?
There's some confusion in your comment. The company is already property of the shareholder. The shareholder holds shares of the company. Thus, the assertion that stock buybacks transfer wealth from the company to the shareholder is a tautology because the wealth from the company is already the wealth of the shareholder.
In the individual case, some number of shares in the company is property of the shareholder.
Perhaps more accurate would be to say they liquidate part of a company's wealth (the broader value of all assets owned by the company) into stock price (the value at which a share can be sold on the open market).
From this perspective it seems fair to say that they transfer wealth from company control to shareholder control.
I think it is best to characterize it as being an opportunity for shareholders to part ways with the company, taking their share of ownership as cash and moving on.
Of course, all of these characterizations are the same and describe the same event, but I find this one the least inflammatory. It makes it clear that no transfer of wealth is happening, that buybacks don't meaningfully effect share price, etc.
There's some confusion in your comment. The company is already property of the shareholder. The shareholder holds shares of the company. Thus, the assertion that stock buybacks transfer wealth from the company to the shareholder is a tautology because the wealth from the company is already the wealth of the shareholder.