No, they're different. A publicly traded company detains private information. That allows it to make a better estimate of its real value compared to the public

No, they're different. A publicly traded company detains private information. That allows it to make a better estimate of its real value compared to the public. It that value is larger than its market cap, it ultimately creates more value for the shareholders to see the company do share repurchases than issue a dividend. Yahoo made the smart decision by repurchasing shares because they knew they would spin off the Alibaba stake - before that was made public - and that would lead to an appreciation of their market cap. They managed to buy shares at an average price inferior to the market price post release of that information. Other factors can influence the choice between share buybacks and dividends; that was just one example.