Omnicare To Buy Back Additional $500 Mln In Shares; Hikes Dividend 43%

(RTTNews) - Pharmacy services provider Omnicare Inc. (OCR) announced an additional share repurchase program and a sizeable increase to its quarterly dividend.

The company said that its board authorized the company to repurchase an additional $500 million of outstanding shares of its common stock from time to time through December 31, 2015. Year to date, the company has repurchased 4.2 million shares for an aggregate purchase price of $220 million.

In addition, the company's board approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.20 per share on the Company's common stock, to be paid on December 24, 2013, to all shareholders of record on December 16, 2013. The new quarterly dividend represents a 43 percent increase over the previous amount of $0.14 per share.