Altria raises dividend

The Altria Group’s board of directors on Friday declared the company’s regular quarterly dividend at $0.565 per common share, up 8.7 percent on the previous dividend of $0.52 per common share.

The quarterly dividend is payable on October 9 to shareholders of record as of September 15. The ex-dividend date is September 11.

In making the announcement on its website, Altria said that the new annualized dividend rate was $2.26 per common share, which represented a yield of 4.1 percent based on Altria’s closing stock price of $54.73 on August 20.

‘Today’s dividend increase reflects Altria’s intention to return a large amount of cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and is consistent with Altria’s dividend payout ratio target of approximately 80 percent of its adjusted diluted earnings per share,’ the company said on its website.

‘Altria has increased its dividend 49 times in the past 46 years.’