Integrated biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp. (CELG) said Wednesday that its board has authorized an open-ended share repurchase program to buyback up to an additional $3.0 billion of the company's common stock.
The Summit, New Jersey-based company noted that the share repurchases could be made in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions.
However, the timing of the repurchases will be determined by Celgene's management according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requirements.
While reporting financial results for the first quarter in late April, Celgene said it had $834 million remaining under its previous stock repurchase authorization, as of March 31, 2013. Celgene ended the quarter with $3.52 billion in cash and marketable securities.
The company also noted that it purchased about 4.2 million shares during the latest first quarter for about $403 million.
Year-to-date, Celgene has repurchased a total of about $1.8 billion of its common stock and has exhausted the previous $2.5 billion stock repurchase authorization. Celgene has repurchased about $6.5 billion of its common stock over the past four years.
The company had previously in June 2012 authorized a $2.5 billion share repurchase program, a $2 billion program was authorized in August 2011, and also a $1 billion program was authorized in February 2011.
There were no share repurchase authorizations in 2010 after the company authorized a $500 million program in April 2009.
In Wednesday's regular trading session, CELG is currently trading at $120.40, up $1.65 or 1.39% on a volume of 1.63 million shares.
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