[tbrownaw]

Yes.

If you have more money than you're able to make good use of improving the company (r&d, acquisitions, new locations, whatever), you can give it back to investors. Which can be either a dividend or a buyback, and in theory (ie, ignoring pesky details like taxes) those are supposed to be equivalent.

[JackFr]

An enterprise can be financed with debt or equity. Issuing debt to buy back shares is simply changing the capital structure of the firm.

It lacks a moral component.