Varian Medical OKs $700m share buyback

Varian Medical (NYSE:VAR) today approved the repurchasing of 8 million shares of its common stock, according to an SEC filing.

The buy will cost the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company approximately $700 million, with the repurchasing slated to start on January 1, 2017.

Varian Medical said it has 4 million shares remaining in an existing 8 million share repurchase authorization which is set to end on December 31, according to an SEC filing.

Late last month, Varian saw shares slump after releasing mostly positive Q4 earnings, while also announcing it inked a new deal with McKesson Specialty Health as well as the retirement of its current CFO Elisha Finney.

The company posted profits of $117.8 million, or $1.25 per share, on sales of $912.5 million for the 3 months ended September 30, for bottom-line growth of 18.9% on sales growth of 11.6% compared with the same quarter last year.

For the year, the company reported profits of $402.7 million, or $4.19 per share, on sales of $3.2 billion. That works out to a 2.3% bottom-line slide while sales grew 3.8% compared with last year.

Varian said it inked a 3-year strategic agreement with McKesson Specialty Health for the deployment and servicing of Varian advanced radiotherapy equipment and software at oncology treatment sites.

The deal will place 7 Varian TrueBeam an 5 VitalBeam medical linear accelerators at McKesson sites, and will position the 2 companies to collaborate to establish interoperability between McKesson’s iKnowMedSM electronic health record system and Varian’s Aria oncology information system.

Varian Medical said its CFO Finney will be retiring form her position, though will remain on with the company until a successor is named, which the company is hopeful will occur during the fiscal year 2017. The company said it has begun searching for a replacement.

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