• CBRL Group, Inc. (CBRL), the parent of Cracker Barrel.

Cramer isn’t looking at the tapped out consumer as the reason.  He thinks their own share buybacks of half of its stock was exhausted, but they just added another 1 million shares to the plan last week.  Cramer thinks this stock deserves much more credit.  He thinks a raised dividend shows it is in great shape and has consistent strong business.

We noted on this in the past about its Logan’s Roadhouse spin-off.  Cramer called this a buyback stock to watch before. Other top Cramer picks of relevance:

• TOP PICKS FOR 2007;
• "Mortgage Madness" Portfolio;
• His Top China Picks, with caution;
• Warren Buffett reviews: Group1 and Group 2.

Jon C. Ogg
September 25, 2007

Jon Ogg produces the 24/7 Wall St., LLC Special Situation Investing Newsletter; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Brady Corporation (NYSE:BRC) announced that its Board of Directors authorized a share buyback program for up to 1 million shares of the Company’s common stock.

MONDAY 9/17/2007

Move, Inc. (NASDAQ:MOVE) announced that its board of directors authorized the repurchase of up to $50 million of its common stock.

LeCroy Corporation (NASDAQ: LCRY) announced that as part of its currently authorized share repurchase program, that this week it intends to commence open-market share repurchases under its share repurchase plan. In May 2006, LeCroy’s Board of Directors approved the adoption of a share repurchase plan authorizing the Company to purchase up to two million shares of its common stock. To date, LeCroy has purchased approximately one million shares under the plan. LeCroy has not purchased any shares since October 2006 when it acquired 850,000 Company shares in connection with the issuance of $72 million 4% convertible notes.

HandHeld Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZVUE) announced that its Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of up to 1 million shares of HandHeld’s common stock, or approximately 6% of shares currently outstanding, over the following six months.

Rocket City Enterprises, Inc. (Pink Sheets:RCTY) announced that will be initiating a stock purchase program beginning immediately. The purchases will occur from time to time at the Company’s discretion.  No shares were noted as the amount, so congratulations.

CDC Corporation (NASDAQ: CHINA) said that since September 7, 2007, the date the company re-opened its trading window, the company and its subsidiaries have repurchased approximately 916,000 common shares at an average price of U.S.$7.42 per share. Since the beginning of the share repurchase program on May 2, 2006, the company has spent an aggregate of U.S.$46.8 million in connection with repurchases of the total U.S.$60 million authorized. In addition, company insiders have purchased approximately 200,000 shares, at a total value of more than U.S. $1.4 million, since September 7.

Ahold (NYSE:AHO) has repurchased 11,702,830 of its own common shares in the period from September 10, 2007 up to and including September 14, 2007. Shares were repurchased at an average price of EUR 10.1821 per share for a total amount of EUR 119.2 million. These repurchases were made as part of the EUR 1 billion share buyback program announced on August 30, 2007.  The total number of shares repurchased under this program to date is 22,258,162 common shares for a total consideration of EUR 225.7 million.

Last Friday, September 14, 2007, Brinks Co. (NYSE:BCO) capitulated.  It announced a new $100 million share buyback program, which represents just under 2 million shares at the current prices.  We feel this is the first of many possibilities that will reinvigorate shareholder values.  As such, this progressed from a watch list to an active stock in our "SPECIAL SITUATION INVESTING NEWSLETTER" which can be applied for in a trial on the link.  We offered what we feel is a more than satisfactory price target with upside, gave the reason and logic behind the call, and even went as far as offering a hedging solution with appropriate stock options for added downside protection.

If you enjoy reading about share buybacks, tune in daily around 6:00 to 7:00 PM EST as we update share buybacks every second or third day.

Jon C. Ogg produces the 24/7 Wall St., LLC Special Situation Investing Newsletter; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

If you look around the world of headlines on Dell, you’ll see various headlines all talking about the earnings and the turnaround with either a positive or negative pitch.  Let’s go past this on down the road.  The company will have a conference call after its next report on November 29 and the shareholder meeting is set for December 4.  But shareholders may be figuring out that is just over 60 days that the company stock may have a new huge institutional investor acquiring shares again on the open market.  DELL ITSELF!

Its net income for the quarterly report was $733 million, while revenue was $14.77 Billion.  There are plenty of funds that can be used for buybacks and one thing is still clear: WALL STREET still loves share buybacks.  The problem has been that the ongoing SEC investigation has halted share buyback abilities, even though the company has completed its own internal accounting review. In March 2005 the company authorized a $10 Billion increase for its share repurchase program, and that is after it said it had spent more than $18 Billion to repurchase 1.2 Billion shares.   Last year it had to suspend its share buybacks pending the internal and SEC investigations. 

Wall Street is probably expecting even more than the original buyback plan to be announced.  Earlier this month Fitch reaffirmed the rating and took away a negative credit watch, but noted that an increase in share buybacks could be one of the risks.  The company said yesterday in the press release that it does NOT expect to resume its share repurchase program until after it has filed its fiscal year 2007 Form 10-K, which is expected to occur by the first week of November.  So now the question begs, "Just how much will be announced for the NEW share buyback plan once they are free to repurchase shares?" 

Whatever the amount is, the company should know that the amount announced probably needs to be more than a mere "we are resuming our share buyback plan" and that the new amount needs to be larger.  The company also may want to consider using the terms "rapidly accelerated share buybacks" to give some further juice to its shares.

Jon C. Ogg
August 31, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.