Worthing Jackman
Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.
Sure. We’ve been consistent over the past couple of years noting that we thought 2017 through 2020 would be periods of outsized M&A activity, and obviously, it’s uncertain how much we lay out, but, you know, we’ve been laying out in some cases $1 billion a year. And so, we feel fortunate in that. We’re able to make those outlays and still drive leverage lower number one. Number two, you know, it’s still not clear to us whether we spend, you know, $0.5 billion in the next 12 months or spend $1.5 billion in the next 12 months. And so, we – as we like the flexibility, we have around deploying our capital for properly priced and strategically consistent M&A and that remains no different. But obviously we’ll recognize that stock market doesn’t always go up into the right. I mean, it’s even [indiscernible] what happens if the Fed doesn't increase or decrease rates this coming week and what does that mean in the stock market? And so, by the way, it’s just – put simply it means that, you know, we like to step in and buy our stock when there is blood on the screen, and, you know, stocks dislocate, and, you know, we’ll just be patient around that. We’re the ultimate long-term holder of our stock and we can pick our stocks around that. But we do agree as say in the press release and in our prepared remarks that you’ll see us increase the majority of capital shareholders and that will be through optimistic share repurchases, and obviously at our low leverage, we can easily spend $1 billion to $1.5 billion on acquisitions and still spend $1 billion plus on stock repurchase if we wanted to and stay comfortably within any leverage targets that we have. So, we’re very fortunate in our flexibility.