Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

Market Information for Common Stock

Our common stock trades on the NYSE under the symbol “IQV.”

Holders of Record

On February 12, 2019, we had approximately 40 stockholders of record as reported by our transfer agent. Holders of record are defined as those stockholders whose shares are registered in their names in our stock records and do not include beneficial owners of common stock whose shares are held in the names of brokers, dealers or clearing agencies.

Dividend Policy

We do not currently intend to pay dividends on our common stock, and no dividends were declared or paid in 2018 or 2017. However, we expect to reevaluate our dividend policy on a regular basis and may, subject to compliance with the covenants contained in our credit facilities and other considerations, determine to pay dividends in the future. The declaration, amount and payment of any future dividends on shares of our common stock will be at the sole discretion of our Board, which may take into account general and economic conditions, our financial condition and results of operations, our available cash and current and anticipated cash needs, capital requirements, contractual, legal, tax and regulatory restrictions, the implications of the payment of dividends by us to our stockholders or by our subsidiaries to us, and any other factors that our Board may deem relevant. Our long-term debt arrangements contain usual and customary restrictive covenants that, among other things, place limitations on our ability to declare dividends. For additional information regarding these restrictive covenants, see Part II, Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources” and Note 10 to our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

We did not sell any unregistered equity securities in 2018.

Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer

On October 30, 2013, our Board of Directors (the “Board”) approved an equity repurchase program (the “Repurchase Program”) authorizing the repurchase of up to $125 million of either our common stock or vested in-the-money employee stock options, or a combination thereof. Our Board increased the stock repurchase authorization under the Repurchase Program with respect to the repurchase of our common stock by $600 million, $1.5 billion, $2 billion and $1.5 billion in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively, which increased the total amount that has been authorized under the Repurchase Program to $5.725 billion. The Repurchase Program does not obligate us to repurchase any particular amount of common stock or vested in-the-money employee stock options, and it may be modified, extended, suspended or discontinued at any time. The timing and amount of repurchases are determined by our management based on a variety of factors such as the market price of our common stock, our corporate requirements, and overall market conditions. Purchases of our common stock may be made in open market transactions effected through a broker-dealer at prevailing market prices, in block trades, or in privately negotiated transactions. We may also repurchase shares of our common stock pursuant to a trading plan meeting the requirements of Rule 10b5-1 under the Exchange Act, which would permit shares of our common stock to be repurchased when we might otherwise be precluded from doing so by law. Repurchases of vested in-the-money employee stock options were made through transactions between us and our employees (other than our executive officers, who were not eligible to participate in the program), and this aspect of the Repurchase Program expired in November 2013. The Repurchase Program for common stock does not have an expiration date.

From inception of the Repurchase Program through December 31, 2018, we have repurchased a total of $5,440 million of our securities under the Repurchase Program.

During the year ended December 31, 2018, we repurchased 12.6 million shares of our common stock at an average market price per share of $111.23 for an aggregate purchase price of $1,396 million under the Repurchase Program. These amounts include 6 million shares of our common stock that we repurchased directly from underwriters in connection with two secondary public offerings of shares of our common stock held by certain of our sponsors for an aggregate purchase price of $659 million. For additional information regarding our equity repurchases, see Part II, Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources” and Note 13 to our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

As of December 31, 2018, we had remaining authorization to repurchase up to $285 million of our common stock under the Repurchase Program. In addition, from time to time, we have repurchased and may continue to repurchase common stock through private or other transactions outside of the Repurchase Program. On February 13, 2019, our Board authorized an increase in the post-merger share repurchase authorization by $2.0 billion, resulting in approximately $2.3 billion remaining authorization.

Since the Merger, we have repurchased 56.4 million shares of our common stock at an average market price per share of $89.12 for an aggregate purchase price of $5,026 million. This includes shares withheld from employees to satisfy certain tax obligations due in connection with grants of stock under the Quintiles IMS Holdings, Inc. 2017 Incentive and Stock Award Plan (the “Plan”). The Plan provides for the withholding of shares to satisfy tax obligations. It does not specify a maximum number of shares that can be withheld for this purpose. The shares of common stock withheld to satisfy tax withholding obligations may be deemed to be “issuer purchases” of shares that are required to be disclosed pursuant to this Item.

The following table summarizes the monthly equity repurchase activity for the three months ended December 31, 2018 and the approximate dollar value of shares that may yet be purchased pursuant to the Repurchase Program.

Stock Performance Graph

This performance graph shall not be deemed “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Exchange Act or incorporated by reference into any filing of IQVIA Holdings Inc. under the Exchange Act or under the Securities Act, except as shall be expressly set forth by specific reference in such filing.

The following graph shows a comparison from December 31, 2013 through December 31, 2018 of the cumulative total return for our common stock, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index (“S&P 500”) and a select peer group. The peer group consists of Cerner Corporation, Charles River Laboratories, Inc., Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, Equifax Inc., ICON plc, IHS Markit Ltd., Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, Nielsen N.V., PRA Health Sciences, Inc., Syneos Health (formerly INC Research Holdings), Thomson Reuters Corporation and Verisk Analytics, Inc. The companies in our peer group are publicly traded information services, information technology or contract research companies, and thus share similar business model characteristics to IQVIA, or provide services to similar customers as IQVIA. Many of these companies are also used by our compensation committee for purposes of compensation benchmarking.

The graph assumes that $100 was invested in IQVIA, the S&P 500 and the peer group as of the close of market on December 31, 2013, assumes the reinvestments of dividends, if any. The S&P 500 and our peer group are included for comparative purposes only. They do not necessarily reflect management’s opinion that the S&P 500 and our peer group are an appropriate measure of the relative performance of the stock involved, and they are not intended to forecast or be indicative of possible future performance of our common stock.