Stock Repurchases

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2018

Stockholders' Equity Note [Abstract]

Stock Repurchases

Stock Repurchases:

Our Board of Directors has authorized a total of $2.5 billion to repurchase of shares of our common stock (collectively referred to as the “Share Repurchase Plans”), including a $500 million share repurchase authorization in March 2018. The Share Repurchase Plans authorize open market repurchase transactions and do not have a stated expiration date. As of December 31, 2018, $446.0 million may be used to repurchase shares 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 $150.0 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 in open market transactions during the second quarter of 2018 and 0.5 million shares for $100.0 million in open market transactions during the fourth quarter of 2018.

We also repurchased 0.1 million shares for $26.9 million and 0.1 million shares for $26.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively, from employees who surrendered their shares to satisfy minimum tax withholding obligation upon the vesting of stock-based compensation awards.