Accelerated share repurchase (ASR) refers to a method that publicly traded companies may use to buy back shares of its stock from the market. The ASR method involves the company buying its shares from an investment bank (who in turn borrowed them from their clients), and paying cash to the investment bank while entering into a forward contract. The investment bank will then seek to purchase shares of the company from the market to return to its clients. At the end of the transaction, the company may receive even more shares than it initially received, which are then retired. This method can be contrasted with a typical open market repurchase, where the company simply announces that it is repurchasing shares on the market, and then does so.