Waste Management 2008 Annual Report Download - page 53
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Please find page 53 of the 2008 Waste Management annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.The graph below shows the relative investment performance of Waste Management, Inc. common stock, the
Dow Jones Waste & Disposal Services Index and the S&P 500 Index for the last five years, assuming reinvestment
of dividends at date of payment into the common stock. The graph is presented pursuant to SEC rules and is not
meant to be an indication of our future performance.
Comparison of Cumulative Five Year Total Return
$0
$50
$100
$150
200820072006200520042003
WASTE MANAGEMENT, INC.
S&P 500 INDEX
DOW JONES WASTE & DISPOSAL SERVICES
$150
12/31/03 12/31/04 12/31/05 12/31/06 12/31/07 12/31/08
Waste Management, Inc. $100 $104 $108 $134 $123 $128
S&P 500 Index $100 $111 $116 $135 $142 $ 90
Dow Jones Waste & Disposal Services Index $100 $103 $110 $135 $141 $132
In October 2004, we announced that our Board of Directors approved a capital allocation program authorizing
up to $1.2 billion of stock repurchases and dividend payments annually for each of 2005, 2006 and 2007. In
December 2007, we announced that our Board of Directors had approved a capital allocation plan for 2008 that
authorized up to $1.4 billion of stock repurchases and dividends. Under these programs we paid quarterly cash
dividends of $0.22 per share for a total of $476 million in 2006; $0.24 per share for a total of $495 million in 2007;
and $0.27 per share for a total of $531 million in 2008.
We repurchased 31 million shares of our common stock for $1,072 million in 2006; 40 million shares of our
common stock for $1,421 million in 2007; and 12 million shares of our common stock for $410 million in 2008. Our
share repurchases in each year have been pursuant to Board authorized capital allocation programs, which were
modified in both 2006 and 2007 by our Board of Directors to increase the amount of capital authorized for share
repurchases by $350 million and $900 million, respectively. In 2008, all of our common stock repurchases occurred
between January and July. In July 2008, we suspended our repurchases in connection with our proposal to acquire
all of the outstanding stock of Republic Services, Inc., and when the proposal was withdrawn in October 2008, we
determined that, given the state of the financial markets, it would be prudent to suspend repurchases for the
foreseeable future. As a result, there are no repurchases to report for the three months ended December 31, 2008 and
the repurchases made during 2008 are significantly less than that which was authorized.
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