Stock Repurchases

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2018

Stockholders' Equity Note [Abstract]

Stock Repurchases

Stock Repurchases:

Our Board of Directors has authorized a total of $2.5 billion to repurchase shares of our common stock (collectively referred to as the "Share Repurchase Plans"), including a $500 million share repurchase authorization in March 2018. Under this program, we may repurchase shares from time to time in open market transactions and in privately negotiated transactions based on business, market, applicable legal requirements and other considerations. The repurchase program does not require the repurchase of a specific number of shares and may be terminated at any time. As of September 30, 2018, $546 million of shares may be repurchased under the Share Repurchase Plans.

On February 8, 2018, the Company entered into a Fixed Dollar Accelerated Share Repurchase Transaction (the “ASR Agreement”) with MUFG Securities EMEA plc ("MUFG"), to effect an accelerated stock buyback of our common stock. Under the ASR Agreement, on February 8, 2018, we paid MUFG an initial purchase price of $150 million, and MUFG delivered to us common stock, representing approximately 85% of the shares expected to be purchased under the ASR Agreement. The ASR was completed in April of 2018 and MUFG delivered additional shares for a total of 0.7 million shares of common stock repurchased as part of this ASR Agreement.

We repurchased 1.0 million shares for $200.2 million from open market transactions during the second quarter of 2018.

We also repurchased 0.1 million shares for $21.1 million during the nine months ended September 30, 2018 from employees who surrendered their shares to satisfy minimum tax withholding obligations upon the exercise of long-term incentive awards.