11.   First he looks for companies with good, sustainable earnings that generate excess cash even after investing sufficiently to expand their businesses.

12.   Frank Cahouet, chief executive of Mellon Bank, impressed Longleaf by using excess cash to buy two asset management concerns, the Boston Co. and Dreyfus.

13.   Generally speaking, such investors would rather see companies reinvest excess cash in their businesses or use it to repurchase shares.

14.   He had excess cash.

15.   High prices notwithstanding, these companies may have concluded that stock repurchases provide the best short-term return on their excess cash.

16.   High prices notwithstanding, these companies may have concluded that stock repurchases provide the best possible short-term return on their excess cash.

17.   However, Mercury Finance continues to pay only debt interest, and periodically pays down principle when it has excess cash on hand, he added.

18.   If you find yourself with excess cash at the end of each month, why not begin by shoveling a steady level each month into an index fund?

19.   In many cases, companies prefer to use excess cash to buy back shares rather than increase dividends.

20.   In other words, they have more excess cash lying around than they could possibly ever use or need for regulatory purposes.