Almost all firms repurchase shares through open-market repurchase programs. In contrast, issue methods are more diverse: at-the-market offerings, analogous to open-market repurchases, and SEOs, analogous to rarely used tender-offer repurchases, are both used by significant fractions of firms. Furthermore, average SEOs are larger than at-the-market offerings. We show that this asymmetry in the diversity of transaction methods in issuances and repurchases and the size-method relation in issuances are natural consequences of the single informational friction of a firm having superior information to investors. Moreover, while this friction always leads firms to issue inefficiently little, it leads firms to repurchase too little if they maximize long-term shareholder value, but too much if the primary goal is to boost short-term share prices.
