AbbVie Inc. on Wednesday said it would repurchase $5 billion in
shares from Morgan Stanley, following the completion of its
Pharmacyclics Inc. acquisition.
In March, the Chicago pharmaceutical company unveiled plans to
buy blood cancer-focused Pharmacyclics for about $21 billion--a
deal it completed Tuesday. AbbVie had said it would execute an
accelerated share-repurchase program to buy back at least half of
the equity issued in the transaction promptly after the closing.
The company in March lifted its share-repurchase authorization to
$10 billion from $5 billion.
Morgan Stanley is expected to make an initial delivery of 68
million shares Wednesday.
Earlier this month, AbbVie sold $16.7 billion in new bonds to
help finance the Pharmacyclics deal, marking one of the largest
corporate bond deals of the year.
Write to Lisa Beilfuss at lisa.beilfuss@wsj.com
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