By Ben Glickman


Altria Group reached accelerated agreements to buy back $2.4 billion in common stock after selling part of its stake in Anheuser-Busch InBev.

The company said that it had reached separate agreements with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and the company on Tuesday received 85% of the shares to be repurchased. Altria expects the remainder of the shares to be delivered before the end of the second quarter.

The tobacco company said its accelerated share buyback deals are part of its expanded $3.4 billion repurchase program.

Altria last week said it would sell about 18% of its stake in Anheuser-Busch in a secondary offering of 35 million shares, and would use the proceeds for buybacks. The stake being sold is valued at more than $2 billion.

Altria said the total number of shares bought in the accelerated repurchase agreements would depend on the final settlement and would be based on the volume-weighted average prices of its common stock during the terms of the transactions.

The company still expects its expanded share buyback program to be complete by the end of this year.


Write to Ben Glickman at ben.glickman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-19-24 1649ET