Moody’s affirms Amgen

Moody's Investors Service said it affirmed the ratings of Amgen Inc., including the Baa1 senior unsecured rating, provisional Baa1 senior unsecured shelf rating and Prime-2 commercial paper rating.

The outlook remains stable.

Moody’s said the affirmation follows Amgen's announcement that it will return up to $14 billion of cash to shareholders through share repurchases, including an accelerated portion. The share buybacks will only modestly weaken Amgen's credit metrics because the company will fund the repurchases with existing cash and investment balances, the agency explained.

"Based on cash and investments over $41 billion as of December 31, 2017, the buybacks will still leave Amgen significant flexibility for other cash uses including potential acquisitions," Moody's senior vice president Michael Levesque said in a news release.

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