NOT cool at all. That would be ludicrous. At the current value of Bitcoins in USD that means you are putting up $1.25 per GHs and getting back 20% of what that will mine after electricity costs? Did we not already BUY those chips with the profits from our company? There is no way we have to put up our shares to get the hashing!! If AM is giving away the chips for a deal like this, then we should be getting a percentage of those proceeds from mining based solely on our ownership of those shares. I fail to understand how you think it's "cool" to have to use your shares as collateral for such an operation. It would be much better for your to sell your shares, buy mining equipment that uses more efficient chips and keep 100% of the profit after electricity costs.
I sincerely hope that this is not the deal FC cooked up. I cannot believe this for one second.
It would be best to wait until all the terms and conditions are presented.
It isn't a share buy back. The shares go up as Collateral where you alone get 20% of the machine you are hashing for, and 80% goes to AM (For Everyone else's Dividends). You don't lose your shares, you merely have them on collateral until you are done with your franchising then. (This means that if you run off with the equipment then you are effectively lose your shares, if you don't run off with the equipment then you won't lose your shares). You would get them back at the end of the endeavor at no cost.
No shares would be bought back and AM wouldn't lose money, they would effectively be building a decentralized mining farm.
Basically if you put up 1000 shares as collateral, then you would mine ~150TH and get 20% of the BTC they mine (minus electricity), 80% of the BTC would go back to AM, where AM saves for Gen4/Pays Divs.
(I don't know if your 1000 shares will get divs from these or any other mining at the time, but if you have 1001 shares, then 1 share will get divs.)
After this is done and the mining ceases or I guess you wish to finish franchising, then you would send the equipment back to FC and get access to your 1000 shares again.
This is the same type of franchising FC talked about a month or so ago, instead of doing checks on mining farms though, he just uses your shares as collateral.