Altria announces dividend

The Altria Group said yesterday that its Board of Directors had voted to increase Altria’s regular quarterly dividend by 8.2 percent to $0.66 per common share versus the previous rate of $0.61 per common share.

The quarterly dividend is payable on October 10 to shareholders of record as of September 15. The ex-dividend date is September 14.

‘The new annualized dividend rate is $2.64 per common share, representing a yield of 4.1 percent based on Altria’s closing stock price of $63.69 on August 18, 2017,’ the company said in a note posted on its website.

‘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.

‘Altria has increased its dividend 51 times in the past 48 years.’