Stock Repurchase Program and Cash Dividend

9 Months Ended

Jul. 31, 2018

Stock Repurchase Program and Cash Dividend

Effective December 13, 2017, our Board of Directors terminated our previous share repurchase program and authorized, under a new repurchase program, the repurchase of 20 million shares of our common stock in open market transactions or otherwise for general corporate purposes, including to obtain shares for the Company’s equity award and other employee benefit plans. The Board of Directors did not fix any expiration date for this repurchase program.

The table below provides, for the periods indicated, information about our share repurchase programs:



	Nine months ended July 31,				Three months ended July 31,
	2018		2017		2018		2017
Number of shares purchased (in thousands)	9,874		2,492		3,653		1,929
Average price per share	$	43.30	$	36.40	$	37.24	$	39.02
Remaining authorization at July 31 (in thousands)	13,223		13,347		13,223		13,347

Approximately 3.1 million shares purchased in the nine months ended July 31, 2018 were acquired under the previous share repurchase program.

Subsequent to July 31, 2018, we repurchased approximately 978,000 shares of our common stock at an average price of $36.32 per share.

On February 21, 2017, our Board of Directors approved the initiation of quarterly cash dividends to shareholders. During the nine months ended July 31, 2018 and 2017, we declared and paid dividends of $0.30 and $0.16 per share, respectively. During the three months ended July 31, 2018 and 2017, we declared and paid dividends of $0.11 and $0.08 per share, respectively.