AmerisourceBergen Announces Special $2.4 Bln Stock Buyback Program

(RTTNews) - AmerisourceBergen Corp. (ABC) said Monday that its Board of Directors has authorized a special $2.4 billion share repurchase program intended to further enable the execution of the company's previously announced warrant hedging strategy.

The new special program will be used to further mitigate the dilutive effect on the ownership interests of stockholders that may result from the issuance of common stock upon exercise of the warrants issued in March 2013.

The company recently completed the April 2015 $1.0 billion special share repurchase program, and had previously completed the May 2014 $650 million special share repurchase program.

The company expects that the new $2.4 billion program should be sufficient to offset the remaining share dilution from future warrant exercises, with about $140 million expected to be used in connection with call options expiring in October 2015, about $700 million expected to be used in connection with capped calls expiring in 2016, and about $715 million expected to be used in connection with capped calls expiring in 2017.

The remainder available under the new special program would be used for discretionary repurchases intended to supplement those hedging activities.