I have to admit that I am not a fan of companies paying...

I have to admit that I am not a fan of companies paying unfranked dividends - in my case it's an unnecessary 30% leakage to non-resident withholding taxes. I would rather see 100 percent of the money retained in the company than give away nearly 3 percent to get my hands on 70 percent of it.

For a company this size and with limited liquidity, share buybacks are difficult. Looking at BOL as an example of a small company doing a buy back ($53M market cap - not too far away from ATP), since 28/9/2023 they've managed to repurchase about $2.4M worth of shares. Some of the daily announcements are for a few thousand dollars only. The point being it takes a long time to "move the meter". A related issue is the impact on longer term liquidity.

Overall, I'd view a buyback as being beneficial (and preferred to unfranked dividends) but it's only a partial solution to the cash build up which is going on.

I'm also a bit wary of companies that buy additional assets near the top of a bull market for their product (as many companies have done to the detriment of shareholders).

All that cash is a nice problem to have without an easy solution.