Apparently stock buybacks were common among US blue chip companies after the GFC. They thought their own stocks were undervalued.

Do buybacks make sense from a tax perspective in Australia? Most dividends are fully franked, so the tax you pay on them is your marginal rate minus 30%. On the other hand, if you hold shares for more than 12 months, the tax on the capital gain is half your marginal tax rate. Not sure what happens to the franking credits in that situation. Are they lost? Or are the effectively included because the cost of buying back shares is a business expense?