本文研究企業生命週期與實施庫藏股動機之關係,利用群集分析將台灣的上市公司分為成長、成熟與衰退期三類,再分別檢定其購回股份動機符合股價低估、信號傳遞或自由現金流量等假說。資料期間自2000/8/7至2005/12/31,使用財務資料和實施庫藏股相關資訊,檢定方法包括分組平均數和中位數差異檢定與多元迴歸分析。結果發現,不論公司處在生命週期哪一階段,其購回股份動機皆與股價被低估有關;成長與衰退公司之購回動機較符合信號傳遞假說,成熟公司則合乎自由現金流量說;不同生命階段公司的購回股份行為(包括預計與實際執行規模及完成率)有所差別。因此,公司實施庫藏股之真正動機與其所處生命週期階段有關。
This paper investigates the relationship between business life cycle and motives for share repurchase programs. The cluster analysis is used to classify life cycles of listed corporations in Taiwan into growth, maturity, and decline stages. For three life cycles, respectively, we test firm's motives of share repurchase programs, which can be explained by undervalued, signaling, or free cash flow (FCF) hypotheses. Financial data and share repurchase information from 2000/8/7 to 2005/12/31 are employed. The statistic approaches include mean and median difference tests between groups as well as the multivariate regression. The findings are that: 1) The repurchase motive is in line with the undervalued hypothesis regardless of firm's life cycle stage; 2) the motives for both growing and declining firms may be matched to the signaling hypothesis, while mature firms may agree with FCF hypothesis, and 3) firms with different life stage exhibit distinct repurchase behaviors, including both planning and realized buyback magnitudes as well as completion rate. Therefore, a firm's real motives for share repurchases are associated with its life cycle stage.