Altria increases its dividend

Altria said yesterday that its board of directors had voted to increase Altria’s regular quarterly dividend by 8.0 percent to $0.61 per common share.

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

The ex-dividend date is September 13.

Altria said that the new annualized dividend rate was $2.44 per common share, representing a yield of 3.7 percent based on its closing stock price of $66.33 on August 19.

‘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 pay-out ratio target of approximately 80 percent of its adjusted diluted earnings per share,’ the company said in a note posted on its website.

‘Altria has increased its dividend 50 times in the past 47 years.’