(19) Stockholders’ Equity

The Company’s current policy, which is reviewed continually, is to retain earnings to finance the operations and expansion of its businesses as well as return capital to stockholders through share repurchases and dividends on common stock.

Stock Repurchase Program

To facilitate its stock repurchase program, designed to return value to stockholders and minimize dilution from stock issuances, the Company repurchases shares in the open market and through automatic share repurchase programs under SEC Rule 10b5-1. The table below summarizes the Company’s share repurchases beginning January 1, 2016 under its Board of Directors’ authorizations:


		Amount		Shares
		Authorized	Total	Remaining	Shares Repurchased
		by Board	Shares	Under Board	Under Board
	Expiration	(Shares in	Repurchased	Authorization	Authorization
Repurchase Program Authorization Date	Date	millions)	(millions)	(millions)	2018		2017		2016
October 2014	none	4.0	3.7	0.3		0.3		0.9		1.3
February 2018	none	4.0	—	4.0		—		—		—
Total shares repurchased under authorization						0.3		0.9		1.3
Cost (millions)					$	5.8	$	16.9	$	22.1
Average share price					$	20.28	$	19.13	$	16.55

The Board authorized stock repurchase program expired at the Effective Time of the Merger as there is no established trading market for our equity securities as of the Closing Date of the Merger. The Company also repurchased approximately 0.5 million, 0.5 million and 0.4 million shares of common stock from employees, respectively, during each of 2018, 2017 and 2016 to satisfy the minimum statutory employee withholding tax upon the net settlement of restricted stock unit awards.

Dividend Program

In 2015, the Company’s Board of Directors initiated a dividend program under which the Company began to pay quarterly dividends, subject to quarterly declarations by the Board of Directors. During 2018, the Board of Directors declared and the Company paid quarterly cash dividends of $0.07 per share totaling $9.2 million in the aggregate and issued stock dividends of $0.1 million.