I think ultimately it should come down to a Return on...

I think ultimately it should come down to a Return on Investment. It should be a fairly mathematical decision. For instance, if the Equity risk premium + Risk free rate is 10%, and the company can achieve a return on investment of 11% then the company should take the 11% decision. If they therefore believe that the share price is undervalued by a number that achieves a 11% return on re-rating (or for example, they valued it at $1 and the share price is 0.90. In order to move back to $1 it would = 11.11% increase) then as a value investor, I would argue that this is a better investment.

So ultimately it comes down to the return on investment. Thats why I was pushing for an equity strategy. A strategy like that would stipulate such a decision. If the share-price is over-valued, we wont achieve a high return on excess capital, so dividends makes sense. If its undervalued, buy-backs make sense. Im not sure on store openings, you would have to do a NPV formula which includes future cash flows to determine if that was appropriate. It could make sense, especially if the share price is severely undervalued. Whatever number is higher for the return should be the decision. It shouldn't be too subjective IMO.