Alliance Data restarts buyback program, reviews leverage

DALLAS—Alliance Data Systems Corp. said Wednesday its board reinstituted the company's stock repurchase program, authorizing the buyback of up to $500 million worth of common stock.

The repurchase program had been suspended in May 2007 as required by the merger agreement then in effect with Blackstone Group. That deal was terminated last month.

Alliance Data currently has about 78.5 million common shares outstanding.

Alliance Data said it also is reviewing its capital structure to determine an appropriate level of leverage going forward. Decisions will be made over the next few months, the company said.

"Our recently completed financing arrangements give the company record levels of liquidity, with approximately $2 billion in immediately available excess capacity," said Ed Heffernan, Alliance Data's chief financial officer. "We currently expect that Alliance Data could secure an additional $1.5 billion to $2 billion in capacity while maintaining an investment grade profile by levering up from approximately 1x to 3x."

Alliance Data said it expects to continue meeting or beating Wall Street's earnings forecasts throughout the year.