AmerisourceBergen Corporation has authorized a special $2.4 billion share buyback program in an attempt to mitigate a possible dilution from the exercise of warrants issued to Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc two years ago. The company is no stranger to this kind of move, as it already repurchased $650 million of its shares last year and $1 billion in shares since April of this year.

AmerisourceBergen believes that the $2.4 billion program will be enough to offset any share dilution still expected from the execution future warrants. Around $140 million is expected to be set aside to absorb outstanding call options which will expire in October this year, while approximately $700 million should offset capped calls expiring next year. Another $715 million is expected to be used to cover any to capped calls taken before their expiry in 2017.

“We are very pleased that we have recently made significant progress towards further offsetting the expected impact from warrant exercises in 2017, after having essentially fully covered the expected impact from the 2016 warrants during our June 2015 quarter,” said Steven H. Collis, AmerisourceBergen President and Chief Executive Officer. “With our cash flow generation, we have tremendous flexibility to mitigate the remaining impact of the warrants either through share repurchases, hedging activities, or strategic acquisitions.”

Officials of the Chesterbrook based company which sources and distributes various pharmaceutical products to healthcare providers, biotech and pharmaceutical manufacturers, as well as specialty drug patients in the U.S. and internationally stated that the new buyback program will not impact its fiscal year 2015 and 2016 profit forecast.

The program to repurchase shares will be funded with proceeds from the warrant exercises as well as by cash on hand. The buyback of the stock is expected to occur in the open market and by other means, be it by exercising existing call options or other possible future contracts.