Cigna announced Monday that it plans to repurchase over $7 billion of its own stock this year.
In a statement, the Bloomfield-based insurer and health care services conglomerate said it will increase its share purchase authorization by $6 billion, bringing total capacity to $10 billion. The company will commit “in excess of $7 billion” to stock buybacks this year alone, citing the “attractive valuation of Cigna’s equity.”
Cigna officials said the arrangement allows them to enhance shareholder value and makes sense because the company is not currently contemplating “large-scale mergers or acquisitions.”
“Our plans for significant share repurchase coupled with our recently increased dividend reinforces the confidence we have in our long-term growth plans and the underlying earnings power of Cigna’s business portfolio,” said Cigna Chairman and CEO David M. Cordani. “This reflects continued and effective capital deployment for shareholders.”
Year-to-date, Cigna has repurchased $1.2 billion of its own shares.
The company also announced this week that its board of directors has authorized an additional investment of $450 million into Cigna Ventures, the firm’s venture capital arm. Officials said the investment will target three key sectors: insights and analytics, digital health and experience and care delivery and enablement.
