Over a year ago, I highlighted Loews
Not all share repurchase programs create value, of course. Sears Holdings
That's not a subjective statement. Loews is known to trade at just the value of, or even at a discount to, the publicly traded pieces of its empire. That would be the company's 90% ownership of CNA Financial
Management admitted to being frustrated by this situation on its recent conference call. As long as the company buys its own stock, though, this really isn't the worst situation. Sure, the company shares lose some of their currency value in a potential mergers-and-acquisitions transaction, but Loews is sitting on $2.4 billion, so it's hardly dependent on these shares to get a deal done. The value captured through repurchases over the years seems to far outweigh any downside of a perpetually underpriced stub.
As long as you can get comfortable with Loews' rather high exposure to the volatile energy sector, I think the stock is well worth your Foolish scrutiny.
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