“At the end of June, we had $528 million remaining under the currently authorized $1 billion share repurchases program, which we expect to complete by the end of this year.”

In context

“s strong and as of the end of the second quarter, our debt to EBITDA ratio was 2.2x. In July, we received the remaining $1.7 billion plus interest from Philip Morris International as a part of the ICO’s agreement we announced last fall. After receiving the payment, we repaid the term loan we entered to finance the NJOY transaction. We remain committed to creating long-term shareholder value through the pursuit of our vision and our focus on significant capital returns and maintaining a strong balance sheet. We demonstrated this commitment in the first half by completing our acquisition of NJOY, retiring approximately $1.6 billion in long-term notes at maturity with available cash, paying approximately $3.4 billion in dividends, and repurchasing $10.4 million shares totaling $472 million. At the end of June, we had $528 million remaining under the currently authorized $1 billion share repurchases program, which we expect to complete by the end of this year. With that, we'll wrap up and Billy and I will be happy to take your questions. While the calls are being compiled, I'll remind you that today's earnings release and our non-GAAP reconciliations are available on altri.com. We've also posted our usual quarterly metrics, which include pricing, inventory and other items. Let's open the question-and-answer period. Operator, do we have any questions? Billy Gifford : Just quickly before we turn it over to the Q&A, I just want to apologize to those of you on the webcast for some audio issues we had early on in the call. So we will work to expedite the posting of our replay, so you'll have full access to the remarks. So with that, we'll turn to Q&A. Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Investors, analysts, and media representatives ar”